The Unfortunate Life of Neo
by DisordiaX
Summary: Team RWBY has just finished up thwarting a grimm invasion and capturing the nefarious Torchwick. Now they're crossing paths with a familiar foe as they stumble upon her, beaten and left for dead. How with the girls react? How will the school? How will her past allies? Team RWBY may just be gaining an unlikely new teammate. M for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

_**AN : Hello all. DisordiaX here with my first attempt at writing a fanfic. Well, first published atttempt anyway. I've had plenty of random thoughts and decent starts end up languishing in my personal directories; never escaping to see the light of day. This story was in the same boat actually before I decided to get it another shot. I started playing with the idea after the end of season 2 and as such, it's set just after the failed grimm invasion from Mountain Glenn and the arrest of Torchwick and won't be taking into account anything from season 3 unless I decide to bring parts or inspiration from it in. This will basically be a divergent story from that point. Also, there will not be any form of set schedule for this. Not a particularly prolific or talented author, so I'll only be updating when inspiration strikes me. I will do what I can to at least expedite the process, especially if this actually gains interest from followers. I think that's enough talk from me, so I'll end this note with I will gladly welcome suggestions, criticisms, thoughts and thank you for your input.**_

 _ **EDIT: Added a cover image to this story and wanted to give credit to Yurax-Mae for the image. You can find more of their work on their tumblr with the same name.**_

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The tell-tale pitter patter sounds of rainfall could be heard throughout the city of Vale this evening as the resident storm has decided to linger above the city for at least another day. The normally vibrant colors and sounds of the city had seemingly been washed away by the constant downpour and replaced with a much narrower range of dull grays and blacks. The sidewalks are sparsely populated by the occasional unfortunate citizen shuffling through an uncharacteristically heavy air of dreariness. One such citizen is a recently dismissed and more recently escaped member of a criminal organization known as the White Fang.

Neopolitan, or Neo for short, staggered along a nondescript sidewalk in the heart of downtown Vale with no real direction or purpose. Parasol in hand in this deluge would've been a boon if the handle wasn't bent nearly in half and the canopy wasn't in tatters. Her clothes matched the state of her parasol with gashes and rips in her jacket and skirt from what looks to be stab wounds. Upon closer inspection, dried blood stains could be found on the edges of her damaged clothes and her milky white skin was in the process of turning into an ugly brownish purple as the bruising was becoming more and more evident. It would take a much more thorough inspection to find the broken bones and internal bleeding, but a cursory glance is all you would need to tell that she did not leave wherever she was previously on amicable terms.

She needed medical attention and she knew it, but the chances of her surviving a trip to Vale Memorial with her life or freedom intact would be minimal at best. Forget the fact that the police would be alerted if she was recognized; she couldn't even give them her name, much less any of her identifiable information. Hell, she couldn't even remember any of that information anyway. Neo was just a code name Cinder had given her when she picked her up off the street; she had forgotten or blocked out most of the childhood she survived through with her family. The police would most likely be alerted if a girl walked into a hospital almost beaten to death with no clue or proof of who she even was. With the only place she had ever known as a safe haven now treating her as a kill on sight target, she could only hope her body could heal itself.

She continued on with her painful journey to god knows where and pondered her options as uncertainty and the fear of death started to become a very real sensation. Unfortunately, the rain soaked sidewalk was left in woeful disrepair and a jutting edge in a cracked piece of pavement reached out to grab Neo by the ankle. A stunted attempt to correct her footing was countered by a slip on the slick surface, and Neo found herself tumbling to the cold pavement. Crack. She could feel another bone fracture, at best, as her arm was trapped awkwardly underneath her weight as she tried to catch herself. After retrieving her arm from underneath herself, seething from the new pain during the process, she resigned herself to lying on the cold concrete; rain peppering her face and body as she pondered what she was going to do with her life at this point, or where she could even go.

"Hey! Are you ok?" A young woman called out to her as Neo's prone form came into her line of sight.

Her self-reflection was cut short as she lifted herself up to try and acknowledge her would be rescuer.

"YOU!" The young blonde quickly recognized the girl in distress as her opponent who had barely defeated her in that rail car during the grimm invasion attempt. A look of horror washed over Neo's face, but was quickly replaced by resignation. _This is where my life will end, eh?_ Neo collapsed back down to the ground as the pain was overtaking her ability to hold herself up. She did not have to wait long as the fiery blonde quickly mounted her and proceeded to jerk her up by her collar until they were face to face.

"Ya know, I really hate one sided fights against a weak opponent." Yang gritted out while wearing a murderous scowl on her face; her eyes were already a vibrant, crimson red. A second later, her fist was balled up and cocked beside her furious expression. "So I'm gonna have to try really, really hard to enjoy this."

That was the last thing Neo could remember from the rain soaked evening; a world of gray that was in danger of being engulfed by a sea of burning red washing over and enveloping everything.

 _ **~The Next Morning~**_

Neo could barely open her eyes as a ray of sunlight peeking through the curtains was attempting to blind her. She shifted her head deeper into the pillow to avoid the traitorous sun and its dastardly attempts to burn out her retinas. Wait...curtains...pillow...the last thing Neo remembered was being pulverized into the ground by one furious blonde. How did she end up in a rather comfy bed?

"Looks like you're finally awake. Yang did a real number on you before I caught up to her." After realizing her ward had finally awakened, Blake snapped her book shut and laid it on the table. She was seated beside Neo's bed patiently waiting for her to rejoin the world of the living. "It looked like you had some major injuries before we found you, but Yang definitely added her own touch. I wouldn't suggest trying to move your mouth anytime soon."

Neo stared at her new captor with pleading eyes. She recognized her from the train as one of the bimbo's teammates. The brief feeling of euphoria from still being alive and stable quickly drained from her body. Blake held a mirror up for Neo to see the damage that was wrought. Bandages covered her nose which was most likely broken, most of her skin was discolored and swollen, she had two black eyes and, from the looks of it, both orbital bones were broken as well. To say Yang 'did a number' on her seemed to be a gross understatement.

"Looks like you are healing nicely with the aura infused treatment. The exterior should heal rather quickly once the interior damage is taken care of." Blake managed to preemptively answer the questions Neo had yet to ask. "After this we're taking you to see Ozpin, though." Blake continued on as she approached her bed. She leaned over until her mouth was a scant inch or two from Neo's ear. "An exile is a much different situation from a deserter."

What? Exile? Deserter? She wasn't sure what she had meant by that comment and the headache that followed didn't make matters any better. It was an ominous choice of words though and a sense of dread washed over her as Blake stepped back and walked towards the door. Blake stopped and turned back just as she was about to cross the threshold into the hallway. "I'll let them know you're up and don't worry. Ozpin is a rather generous man. You'll probably just get a life sentence." With that, Blake left her alone as her thoughts started travelling a million miles a second, which did not help that headache at all as it made its plans to hang around perfectly clear. Thankfully, she didn't have long to spend thinking over things as Blake quickly returned with Yang and an older looking blonde.

"This is the White Fang mercenary you two battled with on Highcrest Street?" the blonde, most likely, professor inquired as she inspected the young girl strapped down on the bed.

Wait, was she always tied down? When did that happen? She managed to start throwing herself a pity party over how hopeless her situation was before she even thought to try to get up. Although given the pain and damage she endured, her ability to run away would be tenuous at best, even if she was unbound. Her self-chastisement was cut short as the conversation being currently held was apparently going to continue with or without her and she decided to stick with it.

"Saying it was a battle is a bit disingenuous, Professor Goodwitch. Yang pounced on her and started wailing on her face. I barely managed to pull her off before she beat her to death." Blake said as she crossed the room and stood on the far side of Neo's bed.

 _Hah. I was right. She is a professor. Goodwitch…I think I've heard that name before.._. _somewhere..._ Neo contemplated the changing situation as the huntresses moved about the room.

Blake started to undo the straps around Neo's wrists as Goodwitch joined her on the opposite side and mimicked Blake's movements. All the while Yang was standing in the corner of the room and was content to stare holes through Neo as she was freed from her confinement. The professor briskly pulled her up from the bed and started to lead her out of the room.

"Let's go, you two. Ozpin will be expecting us shortly." The older woman ordered the pair as she led Neo out of the room. She was led through buildings and winding corridors; Goodwitch was never more than a step away and her hand at her side. Blake and Yang plodded along a couple steps behind, yet their eyes stayed trained on her person. Her mind had gone blank as she seemed to create a new fear with every step she took. Her captors were happy with continuing the trek in silence and Neo wasn't going to change that. A couple of agonizingly long minutes passed before the four women found themselves staring at a pair of giant wooden doors.

"Come on girls, the headmaster is expecting us."


	2. Chapter 2

The oaken doors opened with a flourish as Glynda pushed through the double doors. They found Headmaster Ozpin sitting at the far side of the office with his chair's back to the girls entering the room. As they file in, Ozpin stands and walks up to the glass paneling that was his office's far wall; continuing to stare out in the vast expanse of the Beacon campus and the forests beyond. Yang and Blake move to sit in the pair of guest chairs while corralling Neo to the center of the room, just in front of the desk. Glynda moves to stand beside Ozpin before he finally addresses his visitors.

"So girls, I would love to hear the story of how you managed to capture a White Fang officer and deliver her to my office." Ozpin asked as he returned back to his desk and leaned lackadaisically against it. A dismissive shake of Glynda's head at his seemingly trite attitude towards the whole situation went seemingly unnoticed by the cause.

"Right sir, let me explain..." Blake quickly jumped in to explain the entire situation again to Ozpin as he focused on the absorbing her story. Periodically, he would glance over at Neo which would bring on another round of fidgeting. This was actually the first time she had a chance to collect her thoughts and she realized she wasn't exactly sure what the hell is actually going on. Why was she here exactly? That all too familiar headache returned as she saw a deluge of images flow through her consciousness. Names without faces, faces without names, places without locations, Neo couldn't figure out how any of these things could or should be connected. Her thoughts swirling in her head vanished from focus when Ozpin finally addressed her directly.

"Yang, that temper will get the best of you if you don't learn to control it. Beating up an already defeated opponent is not something I can just turn a blind eye to, even if she is a criminal." Yang shrank in her chair as Ozpin chastised the buxom blonde before turning to Neo. "Now, I'd like to hear what happened before that, Neo was it?"

"Yes sir, we first ran into her when Roman commandeered that Atlas Paladin and reigned havoc on downtown Vale." Blake replied as she recalled the events from her little excursion into a White Fang gathering with Sun.

"Well, Neo, would you care to enlighten us on how you came to be caught by these two girls last night?"

Neo started to open her mouth, pondered for a second, closed it, and then started making hand gestures to indicate a pad and paper.

"What, cat got your tongue?" Yang had finally decided to join the conversation and she did so with a horrendous pun. Blake shot her a deadly glare but she was otherwise ignored. Still, she could swear Ozpin cracked a faintest smile at her quip.

"Glynda, it looks as if she'd prefer a written confession. Could you fetch a pen and some paper?"

She quickly gathered a pad and pen and handed them over to the pint sized criminal. She took the proffered items and started to try to write out an explanation. Trying, because she immediately hesitated and started visibly shaking when she realized she wasn't sure what actually happened before that. She quickly penned a response and pushed the pad over towards Ozpin before shrinking back.

He only needed a scant second to read the _I don't know_ scrawled in shaky handwriting. Ozpin furrowed his brows in consternation as he considered what this meant for this investigation.

"It seems are friend here may be suffering from a bout of amnesia." Ozpin announced with a flick of his eyes glancing towards Yang.

"Oh that is a load of bull! You can't possibly believe her!" Yang roared as her fire was reignited. Blake was quick to reprimand her hotheaded partner.

"Yang! Calm down, do not do this here."

"But-"

"Ms. Xiao Long, I suggest you follow your partner's advice." Glynda ended her temper tantrum with her signature stern command along with a subtle stroke over her riding crop on her hip. Yang was still fuming but kept her tongue in check.

With that disturbance handled, Ozpin handed the pad back to Neo. "Please can you tell us anything that you can remember at all."

Neo hesitantly took the pad and started jotting down any memories she could recall before the headaches resurfaced. Ozpin retrieved the pad once she finished and started reading through the ramblings. She described the attack by Yang, along with another much more vague incident; a house, filled with anger and fear, a pair of monsters, then an alleyway. Everything else seemed to be to much of a jumble.

"Neo, how would you like to join Beacon Academy, as a transfer student?"

"WHAT THE F-"

"YANG XIAO LONG! My office! Now! Blake, escort your partner out of here, before I have to."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"NO WAY CAN SHE-"

Ozpin's surprising offer, to the surprise of absolutely no one, sent Yang off the deep end once again forcing Glynda have Blake escort her out of the room, which she was not taking well. Blake wrangled her partner to the door and shoved her out into the hallway before she could shout anymore obscenities at the leaders of their school.

"Yang, what the hell was that? You can't just start exploding at Ozpin like that."

"Blake, she cannot join Beacon. She should be in a super max Atlassian joint at best!"

"That's not our call to make, Yang. You know that."

"She almost killed me. She had her sword to my throat."

Yang and Blake's heated exchange quickly took a turn as the room went deathly quiet after Yang's personal revelation. She staggered a couple steps back and collapsed onto a couch in the hall as Blake quickly joined her. She tried soothing her partner with a hand on her back as she felt like she was treading into uncharted waters. Angry Yang is something she's seen before; irate and furious Yang, too. Sullen Yang was something that she had not, and it had thrown Blake for a loop.

"She had dominated me in that fight, Blake. I honestly couldn't touch her, and she knew it. She was toying with me the entire time. I hate to admit it but before I knew it, I was on the ground with my clock thoroughly cleaned. I was wavering in and out of consciousness, but the one memory that came through clear as ever was her fucking smirk. She was standing over me, her sword hovering over my throat and she had this god awful smirk plastered on her face as she was about to finish me off like she was finishing a damn crossword puzzle. That's all it was to her. I will never forget that look on her face, and I will never accept her as anything but a killer who shouldn't be walking free, much less through our school halls."

Blake could feel the fear and anxiety welling up within her partner as she was shaking as she relived those horrible memories from back on that train. Her words were failing her, and she could only comfort her with a reassuring hug, as the doors to Ozpin's office flung open once again. Glynda stepped out alone to address the visibly distressed girls on in the hall.

"It's been decided. Neo will be transferring into Beacon, and given your team's personal history with her, she will be assigned to Team RWBY. We have no delusions that this will be an easy transition; you girls will be expected to help her through this, and do make sure to not mention her origins to the rest of your classmates, for obvious reasons. As for right now, Blake, you can show her around the campus and introduce her to her new team. Yang, however, will be joining me in my office to have a chat about her temper and why she needs to learn to keep it in check."

Stunned silence permeated the room. Team RWBY just gained a new teammate.

 **~Back In Ozpin's Office~**

"Sir, with all due respect, why are you letting that little psychopath into Beacon?" Glynda breathed with a sigh as she closed the double doors behind her.

"Because Glynda, I truly think she can be saved. She's had a rough life and got mixed in with the wrong crowds, but right now, we have a chance to guide her down a better path. We can show her a life that could've possibly been, and still could be if she wants it. I would rather get burned on a kid who can't be saved before I ever give up early." Ozpin answered as he stared out the window into the distance.

"Oh, so this is purely philanthropic then?" Glynda mused as she stood at the door. She was slightly antsy at the thought of an angry Yang sitting in her office unsupervised. This question sparked a response, however, as Ozpin stepped away from the window and returned to his seat, now staring at Glynda.

"You know the types of conflict we're facing; the coming war we're trying to prevent. I will not turn a blind eye to the intelligence gathering resource that she could be." Ozpin relayed his intentions to Glynda as he leaned back in his chair. She had a startled expression on her face, not fully expecting such a frank response.

"I almost forgot how much a terrible man you could be." Glynda said as she started to head back towards her office and engage the angry tiger waiting for her.

"Don't get me wrong, my dear Glynda. If there's hope for a student to find their way to the light, I will do what I can to help them, but I will not let resources go to waste."

"And if she cannot remember anything relevant from her past cohorts?"

"Then we'll do our best to make sure she feels welcome here during her transition."

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 _ **AN - Lesson learned: Do not publish a year old chapter with just a cursory rework, grammar, and spelling check at 2 in the morning without much consideration for the immediate future. I've been modifying the previous entry a bit since I managed to already conflict a bit with the route I wanted to take after spending some time considering where I wanted to take this story. Major plot points have been floating around my head for a while but getting from A to B, not so much. So yea, minor tweaks will probably happen after I post chapters, but I won't make major story changes without some type of notice. Hopefully not at all.**_

 _ **I wasn't really sure what to expect after putting this out there, but I was definitely happy to see the interest gained after one chapter. Thank you all for joining me as I put my ideas to paper, or well text editor, and hopefully you guys enjoy the ride. ^_^**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**AN: Merry Christmas, everyone! I've had this chapter rolling around in my head, and I got some time during the holidays to get it written out and looked over, so here's my gift to everyone. Also, I already have an idea what I want to do for the next chapter or two, so they should be coming out sooner rather than later. For now though, here's the next chapter and I hope everyone's enjoying the holidays.**_

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"And through here is our cafeteria." Blake said as she pushed through the doors leading into Beacon's lunchroom. "Over there is the buffet; you get your tray there and pay over there. Seating is a free for all, so sit wherever suits you." She continued as she pointed to the various areas around the room. Neo was following her arm gestures as she followed a half step behind her, trying to make mental notes. Remembering everything on first blush was a bit overwhelming for her, but she wasn't going to speak up about it. She'd rather make do than draw more attention to herself.

"Are you hungry? I don't think you've had anything since we picked you up." Blake inquired and promptly received a hurried negative head shake from her multicolored ward. Her traitorous stomach, however, quickly made her true feelings known as a growl inconsistent with her diminutive stature ripped through the otherwise quiet setting. It was early afternoon and most students were in classes, so thankfully no one was there to witness her turning 3 shades redder after that unbecoming display.

"Hah, well, listening to your stomach, I think we can stop here for a late lunch. It's usually the busiest on the breakfast, lunch, and dinner schedule, but it's open 24/7 for students, although the selection isn't the best during off hours." Blake continued to lead Neo to beginning of the buffet line and grabbed a tray. Neo was hesitant to join her and it took her a second to realize the problem.

"Don't worry, the meals here are free for students. I said pay, but you just run your id badge through the scanner. I think they just track it to make sure students aren't eating too much or not enough. Ozpin wants us focused on learning and training. That only applies to the lunchroom though. The stalls at the upcoming festival will cost ya, so don't go out there expecting free food." Blake reassured her as they started grabbing some of the leftover food from the day's lunch.

After loading up, they made their way to a table across the room. Neo found it odd they kept passing open tables, but Blake paid it no mind as she made her way to her usual table on instinct. They sat down and with neither girl being particularly talkative, they ate their meal in relative silence. Neo was absolutely dumbfounded at the quality of the food; especially considering that it's free for her to eat. What memories she had of previous meals seemingly left much to be desired. She sat there in contemplation staring at the empty tray as Blake moved to grab it.

"Come on, I'd like to finish this tour up sometime today. Weiss and Ruby should be getting out of classes soon, so it should be a good time to head to our dorm room." Blake sat the trays on the trash bins and led Neo back out into the hallways and towards the residential section of the campus. The hallways seemed to swell with activity as the classrooms let loose of the reins and the hallways filled students as they were now trying to make their way towards their next destinations. Neo instinctively pulled up closer to Blake as the sideways glances seemed to veer away from her when she traced them back to their owners. Blake didn't seem to notice the underlying hostility directed towards them, so all Neo could do was keep close and keep her eyes focused on the ground; hopefully they would lose their interest in her.

The rising tide of students seemed to recede as quickly as it grew and the pair we're able to find their way to Team RWBY's dormitory without much resistance. Neo was thankful to be back in relative solitude without the eyes of the students roaming over her being. As they approached, they could hear muffled arguing coming from just beyond the door.

"Here's our room. Oh, before I forget; these doors lock automatically, so don't go anywhere alone until they get you a key. Sounds like Weiss and Ruby are back." Blake said as she reached for the door. "I'll warn you now, you'll probably be glomped when I open the door." After the warning, she swung the door open.

 _Glomped? What does she mean by glomped? Is that even-_ While Neo froze trying to comprehend her warning, she was promptly tackled by the rambunctious leader of Team RWBY to the annoyance of her teammate.

"Ruby! You can't just run away from this argument!" One hand on her hip, one on her head, Weiss was fighting off a migraine caused by her pipsqueak of a leader. Apparently she was super-duper excited to be getting a new teammate, despite the myriad of warnings Weiss and Yang have been trying to give her. "And now she's here, too. Just what we needed."

"Ohmygodyou'reherefinallyIwassoexcitedIcan'tbelievewegotanewmemberhimyname'sRubywhat'syours-HUNGH" Ruby machine gunned her greeting as she sat atop a dazed and thoroughly overwhelmed Neo before Weiss unceremoniously jerked her off the frightened girl by Ruby's collar.

"Don't get too close to that rapscallion, Ruby! She's still our enemy, I don't care what Ozpin says." Weiss derided as she drug Ruby away from the vile offender. "We don't need another teammate, so sorry if we aren't as welcoming as you'd like." Weiss left her with a parting shot before returning her attention to Ruby.

"Oooohhh rapscallion…that sounds tasty. Does it taste like raspberries?" Ruby innocently inquired as Weiss' headache was amplified by the question.

"What? No, Ruby, you can't…a rapscallion isn't food." Weiss said as she flicked her eyes back towards girl who had finally regained her senses and had also returned to her feet. "Although if I had to guess, I'd say it'd taste more like rusty coins."

"Well, that doesn't sound very tasty…" Ruby made of face of disgust as she started imagining that strange taste.

Blake moved in front of Weiss to challenge and as well as stand between her and Neo. "Weiss! That's enough; she's standing right here." She had grown tired of hearing one of the heiress's vitriolic rants and just had to voice her opinion.

"And that means what to me? I'm not going to hold my tongue to appease lesser company. Why are you defending her anyway? Don't answer that, I don't actually care." Weiss replied as she pushed past Blake to help pick Ruby up off the ground. She was apparently too engrossed in the previous mental images to bother to stand up. "Come on; let's go practice that White Rose formation you keep prattling on about."

"Walking away from this isn't going to solve anything, Weiss." Blake called back to her as she headed for the door.

"We're going to go train." Weiss dismissively shot back as she pulled Ruby out into the hallway.

"But I'd rather-"Ruby started to retort as Weiss slammed the door shut, leaving Blake and Neo alone in the dorm room.

"She's…she's not the nicest person. I don't think she'll be coming around anytime soon, either." Blake tried to assuage the diminutive girl as she seemed to be continuing to stare despondently at the floor, as she had been doing while waiting, hoping, for Weiss to leave. A second look revealed a small notepad in her hands and a pen as she was writing something down. She looked up and handed the pad to Blake when she finished. Blake read over the question as a look of consternation developed on her face from trying to find a way to respond to it.

 _Why does she hate me so much?_

Blake mentally stumbled as she tried to comprehend how to respond to that question. How do you tell this girl that she was happily wreaking atrocities upon the city along with a terrorist organization? How do you look her in the eyes as they're welling up with tears, panic and fear overflowing from her, and tell her that she was a horrendous human being that was nothing short of a blight on society? She almost gleefully killed your partner and closest friend, but now she's staring at you with a glimmer of hope in her eyes that you don't hate her with as much enmity as Weiss just showed her.

Neo had taken a seat on the nearest bed, or more truthfully she had lost the willpower to continue standing, and Blake sat down beside her to try to comfort her. She finally answered her question as she gingerly put her hand on her shoulder.

"Weiss is a very cold person, and she really doesn't want to let anyone close to her. Our team's been set and she's just started getting comfortable with us. Not only are you something new, but you were forced on us by Ozpin, and that's not sitting well with her."

Neo grabbed the notepad back to pen her response before shoving it back into Blake's lap.

 _Really?_

As Blake moved to reassure her, the door swung open again as Yang finally returned from the tongue lashing she received from Goodwitch. "Man, what the hell crawled up Snowflake's ass…" She muttered as she entered the room before she stopped frozen in place, catching sight of what was most likely the cause of the princess' bitchy attitude in the hallway. "What the hell is she doing here? Why is she on your bed!?" She bounded across the room as her outburst seemingly melted the ice encasing her legs and snatched Neo by the collar of her shirt before either girl could appropriately react to the raging storm in female form.

"Yang! Stop-"was all Blake could utter before Neo was unceremoniously launched across the room and slammed into the side of Weiss' bed-frame.

"Why were you cuddled up next to her like she was a friend of ours? What the hell were you doing?" Yang turned back towards Blake as she continued to question what the hell her partner was thinking.

"I was talking to her, Yang! What the hell is the matter with you? She's our teammate now." Blake stood up as she turned to check on Neo but Yang refused to let this issue drop.

"I will NEVER call her our teammate! I don't see how you could even trust her enough to get comfortable around her."

The door slammed shut once again as the bickering pair was made aware of the fact that Neo had managed to regain her footing and ran, probably crying, from the room.

"Yang, you know she's a part of our team now, right? We have to make this work, somehow. Ozpin put her on our team for a reason; he let her in this school for a reason."

"Did you already forget what I told you earlier? I can't forgive her. Not now. Not ever. She wanted me dead, and just because she's 'forgotten' that doesn't mean it didn't happen." Yang derisively air quoted the forgotten to emphasize her point. "What if she just happens to remember her old ways when she's around us, huh? What if we're in a vulnerable position, like when we're sleeping? Do you think I could live with myself if she took advantage of that weakness and killed you, or me, or Weiss, or God forbid, Ruby? Could you live with yourself?"

"Yang, whoever she is right now, she's not the person you met. She seems more like a scared little girl than a cold blooded murderer."

"Yea, right now. You might be able to ignore the underlying danger of having her here, but I can't. I'm not letting my guard down."

"Damnit Yang, whatever, I gotta go find her before anything else happens to her. Thanks to you and Weiss, I think she's been traumatized enough for the day. Thankfully, at least no one else on campus knows her identity anyway." Blake said as she moved for the door, but she caught a look on Yang's face that perked her danger sense.

"Yang, what is it?" Blake asked inquisitively as she turned back towards her partner.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Yang replied as she broke eye contact and started staring off out towards the quad below their room.

"Yang, no one else knows about her, do they? Do they?" She pressed the issue; her hopeful questioning belied the fear that she wasn't going to like the answer.

"Well about that…"


	4. Chapter 4

_**~Ozpin's Office~**_

"This plan is pure lunacy, sir. How can you put those girls directly in harm's way like this?"

"Glynda, I won't lie; she is the best lead we've ever had, but I truly believe she can be saved."

"She's a cold blooded killer. Are you really ready to throw away our students' lives on this belief?"

"I have faith in her and in Team RWBY that it won't come to that."

"Well, you know the old saying; you put hope in one hand and-"

"Glynda, please...We got a new report in from one of our teams out on a mission. Team RVNT (Revenant) never made it back from their mission to clean out an Ursa's den near Pyxis."

"What? No…Vienna...Naama...wait, they are just missing then, right? We could send a search party to track-"

"We just got the report now because the local guard waited until they searched for any survivors before sending word. They found the remains deep in the woods. Apparently their bodies were riddled with deep gouges and dust enhanced bullet wounds. The consensus was that they were jumped, presumably by White Fang, while fighting the pack of Ursas."

"Oh god..."

"That makes the fourth team we've lost in the last six weeks. They're picking us apart. We cannot win the battle of attrition at this rate. Not until we can actually strike back at them. This girl is the closest thing we've had to intelligence on their whereabouts, their plans, their identities. Anything."

"I understand the potential value of what she knows, but still, these girls have barely any combat experience. Miss Xiao Long almost died fighting her the first time. If her memory comes back and things go sideways, at best the teachers we have on watch will be able to put her down and save most of them. At worst...it could be a complete disaster. We need to call James."

"I'm not handing her over to James. There's no chance she'd ever talk if we send her to a super max. She needs to build emotional connections here if we want her to talk to us. She needs to make friends."

"She needs to be locked up!"

"Ok then, Glynda. Can you contact team RVNT's families and let them know what has happened to them? Then, can you look them in the eyes and tell them we are doing everything we can to avenge their deaths and to make sure this won't happen to anyone else? Can you tell them that with a straight face when you know we aren't? I can't. Not anymore. I'm tired of contacting families to let them know the huntsman in their family died ingloriously, and we still have no leads on their killers. We're not one step closer to finding the people behind this than we were months ago when we first heard our huntsmen were being targeted. I'm not ready to tell them we have our best lead, but we're going to let her walk. Honestly Glynda, sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose. This is my choice."

"Well, I pray that Qrow or Tai Yang don't hear about this plan. At least not until after it succeeds."

 _ **~Team RWBY Dormitory~**_

"YOU TOLD CARDIN?!" Blake wheeled around with a look of incredulity plastered on her face. Yang took a step back as she recognized she has little stable ground to stand on in this argument.

"Hey, I didn't tell Cardin, ok?" Yang replied with a hint of petulance in her voice.

"But Cardin knows about Neo?" Blake said in an almost condescending tone as she was trying to walk Yang through the story she needed to hear.

"...yes." She was not cooperating.

"Because of you?" Blake started slowly moving towards Yang as she continued her conversation that felt more like she was trying to pull teeth.

"...technically, yes."

"Sounds like you told him to me!" She threw her arms in the air in exasperation as she finally made some progress in this interrogation.

"That's not what happened…exactly." Yang defended as she thought she was getting a bum rap in this.

"So what happened then?"

"After we came back after running into her, I was left feeling...unsatisfied. I really needed to hit things, so I went down to the gym to blow off some more steam. I ran into Yahtzee down there."

"You do know he hates that name, right?" Blake interjected. Yatsuhashi has never enjoyed the pet names Yang gives to him or his teammates.

"Oh he loves it, trust me. Anyway, I started working out with him, spotting each other and such, and I started talking to him about the evening. Well, I was rather...animated-"

"Loud, you mean."

"Yes, fine, loud. Anyway, I started talking about the evening and how we ran into that little pipsqueak, and I didn't really check who else was in the gym when I started ranting. By the time I was done, I saw a couple CRDL guys in the back corner. They high tailed it as soon as I caught their eyes." Yang finished with a slightly dejected look and slumped shoulders, realizing how much fault actually rested with her after hearing herself explain it out loud.

Blake let out an audible sigh after hearing the conclusion of Yang's explanation. "Ok, so bottom line, Cardin and his merry band of troublemakers know Neo's actual identity and knowing him, he's not keeping his mouth shut."

"Yea, that's about the long and short of it."

"Ok, I gotta go find her. Now." Blake said with an air of finality and did a quick about-face towards the door.

"But-"Yang got one word out before she was gone into the hallway. "-why…?"

 _ **~Beacon Dormitory Hallways~**_

Blake stormed through the hallways with her head on a swivel; trying to find any clue as to where her distraught teammate could've gone. Unfortunately, she found it to be an extremely difficult task as not only did she have no clue where Neo could've gone, but now the break from external arguments has given way to an internal one.

 _Why am I trying so hard to defend her? I was on that train, too. I fought against Roman, her partner. He would've killed me if would've lost that fight. Neo almost did when Yang lost. Why the hell is Ozpin putting her in this school? Roman got hauled off to Atlas, why isn't she? She isn't a good person. But still…it hurts to see her abused like that when she has no idea why they're treating her like that…but that still isn't a reason to forgive what she's done…UGH._

"Back off, Cardin!"

"What's she to you, Arc?"

A familiar name called out down the hall broke Blake out of her self-induced stupor. With the focus on her internal squabble snapped, she rushed towards the commotion as a congregation of students was quickly growing around the verbal combatants in the middle of the hall. She pushed through the throng as the view of the backs of students gave way to the sight of Cardin squaring off with Jaune and Pyrrha with a crumpled mess of a girl collapsed against the wall behind them.

"She's working with those White Fang mongrels, Arc. She was responsible for that Grimm attack last month. All I was doing was knocking her around a little bit. She deserves worse than that."

He stepped towards Jaune, bumping into him and knocking him backwards. He caught his balance though, and with a glance back towards Pyrrha, he stood back up; toe to toe with Cardin.

"I know you're dim, Cardin, but do you really expect me to believe that? She's responsible for the Grimm Invasion, yet she's walking around her like nothing happened? Please, you're just trying to justify abusing her. What's wrong with her; do you not like her hair? Next you'll tell me Velvet is in the White Fang and that's why you ridicule her, too."

"I'm not lying! Go talk to blondie bitch if you want proof. She fought her during the attack."

The crowd started turning on Cardin and audible sneers could be heard from around him after the insult towards an otherwise absent Yang.

"Just stop Cardin. No one's buying it." Bolstered by his partner and the growing support of the surrounding students, Jaune continued to push back against Cardin and his cronies.

"Tchh, you wouldn't be speaking like a man if you didn't have your protector right here with ya. Whatever, let's go. Let these two deal with the freak." Cardin spit out the response before shoving through the crowd along with Sky and Dove.

"Jaune, maybe we should talk to Yang just to see what's really going on. Oh hold on, there's Blake over there." Pyrrha said cautiously to Jaune just as she spotted Blake shoving her way to the front. Pyrrha waved Blake over who quickly started to join the pair, but shoved past as she knelt down to tend to Neo. She was shivering and recoiled whenever Blake tried to touch her.

"What the hell happened to her? Did you guys see?" Blake asked as she finally acknowledged the JNPR pair standing nearby.

"We just got her not too long ago. We saw CRDL crowding around her on the ground. It seemed like they were up to their old bad habits, like with Velvet. Who is she by the way? We didn't recognize her. They were claiming she was a White Fang member, which sounds utterly ridiculous when you think about it." Pyrrha explained what had happened as far as they had seen.

"She isn't, right? Ozpin would've never let trash like that into our school." Jaune followed up the questioning towards Blake, then turned for reassurance from Pyrrha, who quickly shook her head in agreement.

"Uh, Yang and I found her beaten half to death in an alleyway in downtown Vale. We brought her back here for medical care. After that, Ozpin wanted to meet with her, and after they conversed, he offered her a spot in the school. She's been added to our team for the time being."

"Huh, you didn't think to just take her to a hospital nearby?" Jaune asked, not fully convinced by Blake's story.

"She looked to be in real bad shape. We didn't think she'd make it at a civilian hospital." Blake hurriedly spit out a new lie to compound on top of her makeshift story. Thankfully, it looked like Jaune accepted the reasoning well enough.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of her from here." Blake said as she lifted the petite girl up, and started heading back towards the dorm. By this point, the excitement of the confrontation had died down and the crowd along with it, so the trek back wasn't terribly impeded.

"Jaune, I don't think she was being completely truthful." Pyrrha and Jaune continued their conversation in the hall after Blake made her retreat.

"I don't think so, either. I think we should pay a visit to Yang and find out her view on this."

 _ **~Team RWBY Dormitory~**_

"Yang! I found her! Cardin was terror…izing…her." Blake called out as she entered into the dorm room, but only halfway through she realized the room was currently empty. After a shrug of her shoulders and a jaunt over to her bed, she laid the trembling teen down on her bed to try to help her rest and relax.

"Here, just trying to rest. I'm sorry that you had to go through that. Cardin is such a piece of-"Blake was cut off her mini rant as a notepad was shoved into her stomach. Neo was staring up at her with a pained expression on her face; tears welling up but she was doing her best to hold them back.

 _Do you really even care?_

Blake was taken aback at the accusation. _Of course I care about her...right?_ "Neo, of course I do. Why would you say that?"

Neo lunged her arm out to grab back her notepad and rolled away to pen her response. Blake could hear a flip of the page as she poured her thoughts out onto the pieces of paper.

A minute later, she flung the notepad at Blake and quickly returned to her semi fetal position on the bed, staring at the wall.

 _STOP LYING! I know they don't hate me just because I'm new! That asshole in the hallway called me a criminal. Said I was the enemy. Am I? What aren't you telling me?_

A swift kick came from the edge of the bed as Blake was contemplating her answer that caught her in the shin. There was no real power in it, but she got the message loud and clear. "Neo…" Blake hesitated, but broke down and started spilling the truth about her. Her involvement in the White Fang, her relationship with Roman and Cinder, the fight on the train with Yang, everything Blake knew about her anyway. Honestly, there wasn't even much in the way of specifics. They didn't really know much about her, other than she was the enemy.

Neo laid there, staring up at Blake as she unleashed this torrent of information that she steadfastly wanted to refuse to believe. She didn't do those things; she wasn't that kind of person! She just wanted to be accepted; she wanted friends. She didn't want to listen, but she could tell that Blake wasn't lying or telling half-truths anymore. The reactions from the other people here solidified that. She wasn't welcome here. The dam couldn't hold back the rising waters any longer as tears flowed from Neo's eyes.

The sadness was quickly replaced with pain and agony as a blinding flash overtook her vision and wracking headaches tore through her mind. She whimpered as she was tossing and turning violently before taking a fall off the bed and spilling out onto the feet of Blake.

"Neo?! What's wrong? Neo!" Blake reached down to try to comfort the obviously distressed girl through her suffering. The worst seemed to be over as her shaking and tossing seemed to be subsiding and Blake was slowly able to help her to her knees. However, just a moment later, she uttered a bloodcurdling scream before falling face first onto the floor; a sickening thud reverberated out from her body.

"Neo! Please, get up. Neo!" Blake rolled her over and tried to gently shake her awake to no avail. Paralyzed by indecision, all she could do was sit there sobbing while holding the otherwise deathly still pint-sized girl.


	5. Chapter 5

_**AN: Yea...this took longer than I really wanted it to. Sorry! January was a busy month and I ended up with a bit of writer's block after having to rewrite the storyline after a friend proofing my stuff shot holes all through it. Anyway, the next chapter at least should follow quicker than this. Thanks everyone for the support!**_

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"Look, there she is. I told you she'd be in here. Yang, hey!" Jaune called out as the pair pushed through Beacon's gym's front doors and quickly located the luscious mane of hair that could only belong to the girl they were tracking down. She was in the corner of the room and looked to be in the middle of beating a poor punching bag like it had tried to cop a feel, but she stuttered as hearing her name randomly called out broke her concentration. The bag perilously swung back trying to gain a little payback as it careened towards the distracted blonde but she managed to grab the bag before that embarrassing moment could happen and then turned her head around to confront the voice that called out to her. After a moment to take in the rest of the room, Jaune and Pyrrha could see a pair of punching bags laying limp just past Yang and her current victim; the rips and gouges scattered across them showed their golden days were well behind them.

"Hey guys! What's up?" Yang called back after she finished wrestling the current bag into submission.

"Oh we were just looking for you. We needed to speak with you about some things." Jaune replied as the pair made their way across the room. It was barely noticeable but Pyrrha was glancing to and there around the room, making note of everyone there and how focused they were on their current activities. She wasn't a fan of gossip, especially how much she's been the subject of it, and she would be mortified if what they were about to talk about was overheard by anyone. In closer quarters, they started speaking in more hushed tones.

"We ran into a new girl in the hallway getting bullied by Cardin. Jaune managed to drive him off, but he said some nasty things about her; things like she was responsible for the Grimm invasion attempt and that she was working with the White Fang. He also said to talk to you about it; that you had fought with her during the invasion. We didn't really believe him, but we wanted to confirm if there were any truths to the stories he was claiming to be true." Pyrrha got right to the point as she felt uncomfortable having this kind of conversation, especially without the person in question being present.

One thing was certain and that was Yang should never play poker. Her face easily divulged the fact that she knew the girl and the panicked looked after didn't help. Her mental argument over denial and confession played out on her face before she came to the conclusion that she wasn't escaping this confrontation with any kind of deniability.

"Sounds like he was telling the truth for once." Yang finally replied before turning back to her unfortunate sparring partner and resuming the one sided trouncing. The Juniper pair were left shell-shocked by that bomb drop, but Jaune's mouth caught up before his brain could.

"How is that even possible? How could Ozpin let her in here? Why isn't she in jail with Roman? She's dangerous to let wander our halls! Why didn't you turn her in to the Atlas army with Roman after the Grimm invasion?" Jaune machine-gunned questions at Yang until he finally struck a nerve.

"BECAUSE SHE BEAT ME? OK?" She exploded at his careless questions, figuratively and literally, as her hair and fists were set aflame. The punching bag was quick to join the pair on the ground as her anger infused punch tore it off the chain and its smoldering remains slammed against the wall.

If anyone was left in the gym after seeing people trying to question Yang while she was blowing off steam, the resulting explosion left the rest scurrying for the doors. The aftermath in the gym was a deathly silent trio as Yang was trying to cool back down before she lost control and the already flustered pair were lost on how to react to the second revelation revealed by the blonde bombshell. The silenced was broken by a happy little jingle resonating out of Yang's gym bag laying on the nearby bench. She quickly retrieved it while her company tried to recover and find a way to react as they refused to take any more careless steps through this minefield of a classmate.

"Hey! What's up? Infirmary? What happened? Are you ok?! Oh. Well, I'll be in the gym working out, then. Ruby, I'm not coming down there for her. Ugh, whatever, fine! I'll come down. Bye." Her irises still showed a dangerously reddish violet as she launched her scroll back into her bag and grabbed a towel to quickly wipe off the sweat she built up. She tossed the towel into the bag when she was done and slung it over her shoulder.

"I gotta run to the infirmary ward. We can talk later if you want." Yang said as she strode for the doors. Jaune managed to step in-between the girl and the exit as he finally recovered enough to speak.

"But-" Jaune tried to engage her but…

"Bye." Yang punctuated the try with a curt reply and pushed past him and through the double doors; leaving Pyrrha to catch a falling Jaune as they were now standing in the middle of an empty gym with a feeling like a tornado blew through their home town.

 _ **~RWBY Dorm Room~**_

Back in the dorm room, Blake managed to calm down from her bout of hysterics from seeing Neo collapse to the floor, collect the petite girl, and rush towards the school's infirmary. She had no clue what happened to her newest teammate but she knew she had to get her some help.

The occasional student still wandering around cleared the way as she rushed through the halls to make her way across campus. She cursed the logic that put the school's infirmary on the opposite side of the campus from the residence halls as she weaved through hallways and double doors.

When she finally arrived, she flagged down the nearest nurse and quickly had Neo on a bed and heading off to a patient's room for a cursory inspection. A doctor quickly followed in as Blake was guided to the nearest visitor sitting section to wait on the results.

At this point, Blake let out the gigantic sigh she didn't realize she was holding in and was able to sink into the chair before the worries started creeping in. _Maybe her amnesia is getting worse? Could it be affecting more parts of her brain? Will she lose more memories?_ Rampant speculation wrenched through her mind as she waited in that hallway.

After shaking herself loose of those downward spiraling thoughts, she remembered she needed to contact her other teammates about what had happened. She hesitated contacting her partner Yang, or Weiss. They seemed to still be broiling over the entire Neo situation. After thinking it over, she started dialing her scroll and before long she heard the perky response from her lilliputian leader.

"Hey Blake! What's up?"

"Ruby, Neo collapsed in the room after you guys left. We're at the infirmary right now."

"Oh no, what happened? Is she ok?"

"The doctor's in with her right now; I'm stuck in the hallway waiting."

"Okies! I'll be right there!"

"Thanks Ruby." Blake slid her scroll back into her pocket after her quick conversation updated Ruby of the situation, but also served as a small bit of reassurance for the war being waged behind her eyes.

 _Ruby was just as concerned as I was over this. Over her._ She instinctually retrieved her scroll from her pocket and started thumbing through her list of contacts until she hesitated at Yang's name. _Is she really a different person from who Yang fought? No, she's just forgotten who she was. She didn't leave, she was chased out. But the girl I just spent the day with is nothing like that. Ozpin's giving her a chance, though. He's seeing something in her like he saw something in me; I can't just…_

"-donna? Miss Belladonna? Hello?"

The nurse had returned to give her an update on the situation, but Blake gave her no notice as she was wrestling with her thoughts. Thankfully she seemed to respond after calling her name one or four times. She came as a bearer of optimistic news; Neo was resting peacefully, and was only sleeping. Apparently with her kind of amnesia, the mind can be a very volatile place as it can try to rectify itself. Trying to rearrange the pieces to put memories back together can cause a violent reaction for the patient. A temporary ray of hope was quickly tempered as she explained the same thing can also happen when making new memories; especially during emotional moments.

"Is there any way you could help her along to put those pieces back into place, so she doesn't have to suffer through these rearranges?"

"We can't really do anything to accelerate her recovery time, Ms. Belladonna. Aura infused treatment can only help with physical injuries; we can't use it on mental damage." A placating nurse explained to Blake as she sat outside Neo's room in the infirmary ward. Just as she had finished educating Miss Belladonna on their abilities as miracle workers or lack thereof, the on call doctor emerged from her room. Blake sat back down in her chair as they both quieted down their argument to listen to the newest update on their emergency patient.

"As far as we can tell, she'll be just fine. There's no permanent damage and she's still responding to outside stimulus so she hasn't slipped into a coma. She's stable and sleeping right now, but we'll keep a watch on her until she wakes back up." A pair of sighs were expelled as fears for the worst were quickly dispatched.

"Well, can I go in and see her?" Blake piped up after gathering her thoughts into a somewhat cohesive response.

"You can, but we don't know when she'll wake up. I've got other patients I need to tend to; who's next on the rounds list, Carolyn?" the doctor responded as he and the head nurse started down the hall. Blake, left standing in front of Neo's room, pushed through the door into the serene setting. The only sounds to be heard are the various beeps from the machines hooked up around the room as Blake makes her way to Neo's side.

"What the hell am I doing…?" Blake muttered to herself while she pulled up a chair next to Neo's bed. She looked over the girl lying in bed next to her, and she couldn't disagree with the fact that she was a very pretty girl. She looked so innocent while she slept; she couldn't believe this girl was a cold blooded killer. _It doesn't make any sense!_ As she fell deeper and deeper into thought, she started absentmindedly brushing some of Neo's hair off of her face. Apparently Neo is not much of a heavy sleeper as she started to twitch and wake up from that slight disturbance. After a full on double arm stretch, she opened her eyes to find Blake shrinking back like she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Neo's expression quickly soured as she rolled over to face the other side of the room; refusing to speak with her new teammate.

"Neo…how are you feeling? Are you ok? Was that…incident in the room tied to your memories? Have some come back?" Blake tried to coax some communication out of the girl but each inquiry was met with her unmoving shoulders and nothing more.

Around the same time, just outside, a blur of red shot through the halls and ended up somewhat crashing into the chairs in the hallway near Neo's room. The mess of a girl clumsily stood up and dusted off her cloak that she had gotten tangled in prior to her crash. After a glancing around for any witnesses of her spectacle, she strode over to the door and peeked through the slit of a window running up the left half of it.

Ruby saw Neo laying peacefully in the bed, with Blake sitting in a chair next to her. She wanted to bust into the room in normal fashion, but even she could tell this was a scene best left private for now. She sat down on one of the chairs in the hallway to wait for Blake to finish her business with the new girls. After a round of fidgeting, she decided she pulled out her scroll and started dialing Yang and Weiss; after all, this is a team issue.

Back in the room, Blake managed to churn up the courage to apologize for talking to Neo out of both sides of her mouth. "Neo…look. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you who you were right away. We didn't want to tell you something so jarring to keep, well, something like this from happening." Blake started her apology towards Neo, but still barely received any movement from her in recognition.

"And I was nicer to you than the others because…I understand a bit about how it feels to be an outcast and I didn't want you to feel alone here. I know it doesn't really make much sense. You almost killed my partner and tons of other people; you've probably succeeded multiple times, but that isn't you. At least, that isn't the girl I gave a tour to. It's not the girl I talked to in the food hall." Blake started pouring her feelings out without even realizing what they were before she started this rant, but those tiny shoulders stood immobile.

She was starting to fidget as her self-consciousness started to show; she was waiting on the girl to pass judgment on her, and the lack of a response was eating at her more than a rejection at this point. Finally, some movement as Neo rolled over ever so slightly to toss Blake another notepad, then rolled back to her wall staring position. All that was written was a simple _Go_ but it spoke volumes for Neo's feelings towards the cat faunus at the moment.

"…ok then." Blake could only utter a couple words before slinking back towards the door, cursing the thought that she could've already ruined any chance at making a connection with this girl over this terrible first impression.

She stepped back out into the hall to see her fearless leader edging closer to the door while still managing to stay seated. The self-control didn't last long as Ruby bounded up and jumped all over Blake; eager to hear about what was happening. Yang managed to stroll into the corridor to see Blake get pounced on by her overexcited sister.

"Wow, Ruby, you didn't tell me it was going to be that kind of party." Yang cracked as she joined the flustered pair trying to straighten themselves out.

"Geez, Yang! Don't be dirty!" Ruby uttered as she recoiled from her teammate like what she was doing was suddenly dirty.

"It's only dirty if ya play your cards right, sis." Yang said with a lecherous wink. Blake could only shake her head in disbelief that she was on a team with this girl while Ruby made a look that she needed to find a trash can quickly.

"Gross, gross, gross, gross!" Ruby chanted as she violently shook her head back and forth. With one last shudder, she shook off her sister's comments and moved onto more important topics.

"Sis, I hate you. Blake, what's going on with Neo? Is she ok?" Ruby asked after sending a playful jab at big sis.

"It looks like she's going to be fine. It seems like it was caused by her amnesia, but thankfully, there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage." After slipping back into a state of calm reserve, Blake replied to her with the newest information she's gathered.

"Damn." Yang leaned against the wall as she almost spit out the terse response to the normally uplifting news.

Blake could only shake her head at her hardheaded team and storm off down the hallway. She wasn't in the best control of her emotions and she really did not want to get into a shouting match with her partner, lest she ruin two friendships today.

"Blake! Wait!" Ruby futilely called out to her teammate quickly walking away from the sisters, but she stayed her course. Realizing she wasn't coming back, Ruby turned heel and put her finger square in Yang's face.

"What the heck was that, Yang?" Ruby yelled as she started poking at her elder sister. An irritated Yang snapped her arm and latched onto Ruby's wrist as she went for another stab. She released it a second later with an apologetic look on her face as she realized what she had just done. Ruby took a step back and started nursing her wrist as a slight bump started rising. She'd normally milk the guilt out of her big sis for a bowl full of cookies because of it, but right now she had more important issues to focus on.

After seeing her sis staring her down again, Yang averted her gaze with a dismissive and very audible huff as she stared down a random hallway.

"Answer me, Yang. Why are you getting snippy with Blake now? Because she's trying to be friendly to Neo?"

"Don't say her name so casually like that." Yang hissed out dangerously as memories from the train started resurfacing in her mind. "She's evil, Ruby. There's nothing good inside her. That's all you need to know."

"She didn't seem that evil earlier today." Ruby remarked as she tilted her head to the side; thinking back on the events of the day.

The effort to avoid slamming her palm against her head was gargantuan but Yang managed to resist it and respond with another fearful statement. "You barely saw her for a minute; besides, do you really want to be there when she remembers who she is? What she's done?"

"But what if our acceptance of her now will help her reject those feelings when her memories come back?" Ruby responded with a surprisingly deep and thoughtful response.

"Are you willing to risk everyone's life on that hope?!" Yang's anger started getting the better of her as this conversation with her little sister was going horribly off track for her.

"Are you willing to quit on a person we could save so easily?" The tone in Ruby's voice was becoming uncharacteristically angrier as she had never stood up against her sister like this so vehemently before.

"UGH! FINE! You want to show your back to this psychopath, don't expect me to come save you!" Yang screamed as the halls quickly rose in temperature as her rage started to consume her consciousness. She turned and started stomping down the hall to get away from this highly aggravating situation.

Ruby was left standing there alone, equal parts angry and scared at the fight she just had with her sis. She turned to look back into the hospital room to see an awake Neo lying in bed and staring off at the wall; silence permeated throughout the area, only punctured by the occasional beep of the machinery monitoring the girl's condition.


	6. Chapter 6

_***attempts to remove foot from mouth* Well...that took longer than I thought. I guess I will just say I'll try to get these out as quickly as my inspiration will let me. Anyway, here's the next chapter, enjoy!**_

* * *

A few days passed before the doctors were comfortable releasing Neo from their care. Life returned to relative normality around the school. Team RWBY, for the large part, avoided visiting her and barely even mentioned her name. Any time Ruby attempted to steer conversations towards their injured teammate, Yang quashed any talk involving the multicolored menace. 'She's not truly a member of the team and she'll be out on her ass soon enough' according to her anyway. Without any of Team RWBY visiting, Neo was left struggling through a couple days of mind numbing boredom. She recovered with no real damage after her initial collapse, but the doctors steadfastly refused to let her go with the potential threat of mental damage looming.

The housekeeper on call was currently in Neo's room cleaning the bathroom while Neo was up and stretching, wondering when they'll finally come back and tell her she can leave this wretched room. The devil must have overheard her thoughts as just then she heard a familiar click-clack coming from the hallway. Glynda turned heel and casually sauntered into the room as the housekeeper made some cheap excuse to check another patient's room and bolted after catching sight of the headmistress.

"Neo, the headmaster would like to speak with you. Could you accompany me up to his office, if you please?" Glynda asked with a level of deference unbecoming of the otherwise strict disciplinarian. A look of apprehension tore across Neo's face as the prospect of facing down Ozpin still terrified her but she managed to shake her head in the affirmative before snaking her way over to Glynda's side.

The pair made their way through the halls and towards the tower residing in the center of the campus. The halls were unusually quiet, save for the click-clack of Glynda's heels and the muffled shuffling of Neo trying to keep up with her. Most of the general sounds and conversation died down as they parted like the sea while the pair walked by. They didn't dare want to get on Glynda's bad side, but that left Neo standing out with all the attention on her once again. They may not have impeded their walk towards the elevator, but the air was so thick with the sounds of hushed sniggering she thought she was going to start choking on the spot. Thankfully, they arrived at the elevator before she collapsed in a big ball of stress and nerves. The elevator ride was deathly silent as Glynda continued to wear a stone faced mask as she accompanied Neo up to Ozpin's office.

A familiar scene unfolded as Glynda led her into the headmaster's office, but the feeling was slightly more welcoming the second time around. At least she wasn't going to be killed on the spot as she feared she might have been last time, probably.

"It seems like only yesterday that I first saw you walk into my office." Ozpin reminisced as he swung his chair around to meet the gazes of the pair of women who had just graced him with their presence.

"It was only three days ago, sir." Glynda flatly retorted to Ozpin's whimsical utterance as she once again took her post beside the headmaster. Ozpin shot her a sideways glance as if judging her ability to kill any attempt at levity on sight.

"Well, that is probably why it feels that way. Neo, please come sit down. I'm sorry we couldn't meet to discuss happier topics. How has your recovery been going?" Ozpin asked as he returned his attention to Neo, who had been left standing near the same spot as the previous visit. She had no clue how to react in this situation and with her mind racing a million miles an hour worried about why she was summoned, she clung to what little familiarity she could grab onto. After Ozpin's inquiry though, she scooted over to one of the chairs in front of her, but as she looked for a pad of paper to respond with, Ozpin piped up with news of a present for her.

"Ahh yes, I almost forgot about this." Ozpin dug out a box from his desk while Neo stared inquisitively at him. "Here it is. A scroll. Beacon Academy provides a scroll to every student for easy access to our school's repository of sites that contain valuable information. Normally most students already have their own personal scroll well before they arrive here, so we don't really hand too many of these out." He then started going into a spiel about the uses of a scroll and how to functionally use it as he handed it over to Neo.

She swiped the proffered item from his hand and inspected it carefully. She paid very little attention to his attempt to explain how to power it on and it possible use to communicate with others as she deftly powered it on and started navigating the menus. It only took her a moment but she had already taken to the device and had a response typed up.

" _I know what a scroll is. Thank you, and I'm fine now. I've felt fine since I woke up._ " Neo held up the device to display her answer to Ozpin.

"Ahh, so I see. Then, does this mean your memories have returned?" Ozpin asked with a bemused tone; the speed at which she took to the scroll was rather unexpected, but not unwelcome.

" _No, actually…I can't even remember ever using or seeing a scroll before now that I think about it. Is that weird?"_ Neo quickly tapped out as the trumped up fears over revelation started to take root.

"It looks like her semantic memory is relatively intact." Goodwitch interjected from the side. Her interest was seemingly piqued at unexpectedly peeling off another layer of the mystery surrounding their maniacal houseguest.

"Seems like it." Ozpin quickly responded to Glynda before returning to Neo. "No Neo, it just means you've only lost part of your memory, which can happen to people in your situation. Do you remember anything about what happened when you collapsed; something that could have triggered it?" Ozpin reassured the girl before moving on with his questions of interest. His eyes didn't leave Neo as he responded to Glynda and he didn't miss the uneasy shifting in her seat when he asked that question, however slight it was.

" _I got into an argument with the faunus, Blake, and it triggered some memories. I guess my mind didn't handle that well._ " Neo transcribed as she carefully considered the best way to word her answer. Ozpin gave her answer a close inspection as a look of deep rumination spread across his face. This entire situation could be generously called perilous; an unstoppable catastrophe if you were not feeling as considerate. He knew the situation was balancing on a razor's edge, but he had to press forward nonetheless.

"What memories were those, if I may ask, Neo?" Ozpin prodded in his attempt to illicit any information on the group terrorizing and murdering his hunters. Neo furiously shook her head no, but didn't type anything out. He could see the stress clearly on her face; whatever memories she remembered were not happy ones.

"So how was your first impressions with the team and the school?" Ozpin shifted gears on his inquiries before this conversation broke down. This time, Neo calmed down a bit but her mood didn't look much better as she flipped the scroll for him to see after a couple quick jabs.

" _Everyone hates me. I want to leave here."_ Sadly it was not a particularly surprising answer; she was a hated enemy until a couple of days ago. It didn't make this conversation or his task of helping her recover any easier, though.

"Neo, you were…you've been an enemy of this school and the people here for as long as we were aware of you. Changing those feelings won't happen overnight. I'm not going to lie to you and say this will be an easy ordeal. Some of the people here may never forgive you, but I believe that you can change your ways here." Ozpin started into his mini speech to try to soothe the anger and fear Neo has been drowning in while she's been stuck on campus, but Neo interrupted him with a new display.

" _My team despises me. I don't feel safe here, or with them."_ Neo sat back in her chair with a bone chilling stare focused entirely on Ozpin. Her determination was betrayed by the fear dancing just behind her eyes. Ozpin accepted the glare from the diminutive guest sitting across from him and returned it before giving any response.

"You won't find any friends in this school right now; that much is true. The team you're with however, is most likely your best shot at making them. It was an easier transition since the pair that found you," Neo squirmed in her seat at the remembrance of the results of that encounter; well, the aftermath and the description given to her, anyway. Nevertheless, Ozpin continued his talking point. "Were also on the same team. If another student had found you, I still would have placed you with Team RWBY." Ozpin had stood up and stepped over to the window just behind his desk that overlooked the campus. He surveyed the panoramic view before continuing.

"I started this school with the belief that anyone who wants to change, wants to make themselves into a better person than they were yesterday should have the chance to do so. I want to extend that offer to you as well, but honestly, your previous employer has poisoned your chance to do that. If there is any team in this school who could look past those preconceived notions, it's this team."

The door to the office slammed shut as the number of occupants in the office abruptly dropped down to two. The room was deathly quiet, save for the low mechanical whirring of the fan lazily spinning overhead. Glynda let out a long sigh after watching that slow motion train wreck transpire.

"Well that seemed to go about as well as I expected it to." She remarked offhandedly as she strolled over to join Ozpin. He never turned around when his door slammed shut; he just continued to gaze out at the students moving across the campus below.

"I don't have a good feeling about this one, Glynda." Ozpin finally responded ruefully. He hung his head slightly as he started to seriously pulling the plug on his experiment. One call to James would put her in a cell right alongside the other White Fang terrorists and sympathizers. It would be much easier on him, and considering the likelihood of this working out, it's easily the safer plan.

"Of course you don't. I don't either. You're using those kids to try to extract information out of that little psychopath because you can't connect with her at all." Glynda chided Ozpin as if he was a student showing up late to her class. "You've set your course already, though. All you can do now is let it play out and hope those kids can fix your mess. Trying to change direction now will only guarantee failure."

 _ **-Beacon Dormitories-**_

Neo ran through the halls, somehow managing to avoid slamming into any unsuspecting hallway denizens while trying to catch the stray tears escaping down her cheeks. The mental anguish from the roller coaster of emotions finally settling near the low points of fear and depression finally broke through her control over her outer visage. The feeling of being unceremoniously dropped into a raging river and having to fight your way to the edge of the bank while waves slam into you from every unexpected angle had taken a serious toll on her already unstable mental wellbeing.

After a mistaken turn or two, as well as a minor panic attack after a group of gossiping girls trudged through her, she managed to find her way back to the RWBY dorm room once again, praying to find it barren of her teammates. Thankfully, a piece of driftwood floated by close enough to latch onto as she managed to regain control of her tears by the time she opened the door, only to reveal the entirety of team RWBY within. Unfortunately for her, it was late afternoon and most of the day's classes had already let out, yet it wasn't quite late enough for most students to descend upon the cafeteria for dinner.

Blake was lounging on her bed with her back against the wall and her usual book in hand. Weiss was sitting at the desk on her side of the room, flipping through the topmost notebook that was perched on a small stack of others along with a smattering of textbooks and free range papers. Yang seemed to be completely focused on finishing her current set of one handed pushups in the center of the beds. Ruby was lying on her stomach with her face towards the door while flipping through a magazine. Blake seemed to be the first one to peak her head up from her current interest.

"Neo. We had heard you were released. We-"

"OHMYGOSH! I'm so happy you made it out of there!" Blake recognized the newest member of their team had finally returned from her hospitalization, but she was quickly shut out of her welcome back by her fiery leader. Yang just missed her sis's cape as she lunged to grab hold before her sis could dismount her bed and smash into Neo. The near miss left her in a rather compromising mix of diving and falling that ended with her driving shoulder first into Weiss' bedpost. She rolled over clutching her shoulder in pain as Blake could only let out a stifled chuckle at her self-inflicted injury.

Even with the turbulence of her emotions and the sudden shift from lethargy in the room, Neo managed to recognize the potential danger along with a swirl of déjà vu as she barely sidestepped the incoming humanoid rocket. Neo hadn't shut the door behind her, so the fearless leader collapsed in an unsightly mess of cloak and body parts in the middle of the hallway, much to her embarrassment.

"Ow, ow, ow…why did you dodge? Ah! How are you!? We heard you had recovered, but Ozpin pulled you up to his office! Is everything ok?" Ruby transitioned quickly from recovering to continuing her conversation with barely a drop in overwhelming perkiness.

"She just got out of the hospital, and you try to tackle her to the ground? What were you thinking, you dolt!" Weiss yelled in a huff as she slammed her books shut. Now that she had shown up, there was no chance she could continue studying.

"Bu-but I was just so excited to see her recover and I hadn't really got to see her and…" Ruby's nervous stuttering kicked in as she tried to soothe Weiss's apparent anger.

"And you thought putting her back in the hospital with broken ribs would be a good solution to that?" Weiss belted out as she strode up to Ruby and put her judgmental finger in Ruby's face as she was quickly shrinking back towards the hallway.

"Well, no…"

"I'm surprised to see you care so much about her wellbeing, Weiss." Blake offhandedly spoke as she slid off her bed to join the others in this conversation. Yang had finally recovered enough to stand back up, but she was still gently caressing her sore shoulder. Her rough landing had unfortunately ended with a face full of carpet. It wasn't an unfamiliar taste but entirely too dry for her preferences. A look of righteous indignation crept onto Weiss's face as she reared back at the presumption.

"As if! If I can shut down that kind of dangerous action here, then we don't have to worry about her tackling us if we get injured during combat. Not to mention how embarrassing that would be if it happened in public."

"Ahh, I had almost forgotten you were a Schnee. Nothing a word or thought that didn't benefit yourself." Blake launched a barb towards Weiss as casually as she was turning the page of her book.

"What the hell does that mean, Belladonna?" Weiss quickly shot back as she finished switching into full on bitchy princess mode.

"Ok, you two can bicker, me and Ruby here are gonna go grab some food." Yang said as she finished dusting herself off.

"But Yang, we usually don't leave til-hyurk!" Ruby attempted to articulate a response before Yang finally snatched her by the collar and started pulling her towards the cafeteria.

"Does it not hurt your neck to continuously look down on people like that?" Blake continued her surprising offensive against the heiress.

"I…whatever, you want to waste your time with this trash? Fine." Weiss managed to rein in her pride and insults before joining Yang and Ruby in getting the hell out of their dorm whilst she was in it. Weiss did manage to knock over the girl in question who had otherwise retreated back into herself when the yelling started and was just standing in the middle of the room, halfway praying they would forget about her. Being ignored is worlds better than being targeted.

With the last teammate gone, Blake could see the tears flowing freely at this point from the delicate girl collapsed in the corner of the room. _Did I just really think of her as delicate?_

"It's ok, they're gone for now. They aren't the most forgiving or open minded lot, I'll admit." Blake started addressing Neo as she walked over to check on her. Neo recoiled back in horror, however, when Blake attempted to place her hand on her shoulder. Neo looked up at her with a hint of venom interwoven in the fear before she pulled away completely and moved to the other side of the room.

Blake could only stumble backwards a bit, moving on autopilot, while trying to process the response. Did she really hurt her that deeply with her earlier actions? Once she was away from Blake, she whipped out her handy dandy new scroll to type up a quick reply.

" _Just go please._ "

"…Ok." Blake snatched her current reading interest and stalked out of the room; the complete rebuff seemed to cut much deeper than she expected. Once the room had emptied, the last of Neo's strength left her as she collapsed in a heap on the makeshift bed they had created for her. It was basically just a mattress lain on the ground with a pile of blankets and pillows. Her tears continued to flow, only stopping when her consciousness drifted off to places hopefully absent of her current tormenters.

 _ **-Later That Evening -**_

Neo awoke to discover everything from her eyes to her blankets were stained with the crud from her tears. She sat up and vigorously rubbed at her eyes to cleanse the nasty feeling from her face. Once the stinging sensation subsided, she quickly scanned the room after realizing she was cloaked in complete darkness. She could see the still forms of her new teammates lying on their particular beds so she figured it must be rather late. In Yang's case, she could hear her and her hellacious snoring long before she even saw her. _How in the world are they still asleep?_ After quickly disregarding that perplexing question, the red glowing eyes of the clock sitting on the nearby desk read out 2:35 with unerring dedication.

She finally rose to her feet and stumbled her way into the bathroom. She could only give a silent thanks her clumsiness didn't awaken anyone in the room. After she cleaned her face more thoroughly with the heavenly feel of hot water on skin, she started contemplating her future and what she was doing here. She didn't know what she wanted to do, or where she wanted to be. She couldn't really remember anything apart from her very early childhood, and those thoughts were focused on staying out of sight and hoping she could find her next meal sooner rather than later. She didn't really have any higher aspirations to draw on and she couldn't even think of anyone that she could call close to her. After really putting thought into her situation, she couldn't help but feel utterly alone, but the one thing she did know was that she didn't want to be here any longer. A peak back into the room revealed four aspiring huntresses still sound asleep, so she took her chance to steal away through the outside hallway, leaving the dorm room unlocked and ajar.

Thanks to her new scroll, Neo was able to piece together the location of the closest town, apparently called Vale, and the basic directions there. After slipping her scroll back in her pocket, she carefully stalked through the campus grounds, making sure not to stumble upon anyone who may be on guard, or just any random night owls wanting to purvey the midnight sky. Her heart stopped when the oaken doors leading out into the main courtyard groaned in reluctance as she carefully wrenched them open, but after clearing the courtyard, she broke into a jog as she hit the grass separating the forest from the campus. Just before she reached the tree line however, she heard the whistle of a sharp wind whipping past her. She twirled on the spot to see who the culprit was but all she found was a swirl of rose petals floating about. Immensely confused at not seeing anything else in particular behind her, she attempted to return back to her goal of escaping the academy but she ended up face to face with the miniscule team RWBY leader now standing in front of her.

Neo grabbed for her scroll to quickly type out her questions about why and how she managed to show up right in front of her, much less even know where she was or what she was planning on doing, but before she could even pull her hand from her pocket, she felt a tight compression on her chest as Ruby has shot over and trapped her in a miniature bear hug.

"Where were you going? Why were you not even going to say goodbye?" Ruby squeezed out a pair of questions before Neo even had a chance to react.

Neo barely managed to finagle her hands together, despite the girl's vice grip on her abdomen, to eke out a response to her questions.

" _Anywhere. Nowhere. Away from here."_ Neo fell backwards doubled over with her hands on her knees as a stream of breath flooded into her starving lungs. Ruby finally released her chokehold to read Neo's message while she tried to recover. A look of confusion with a twinge of sadness painted Ruby's face as she read and reread the message.

"But, whhhhyyyy?" Ruby reverted back to her whiny inflection as she continued her questioning. Neo recovered back to a standing just in time to be greeted by Ruby's sad puppy dog eyes.

Somehow, Neo was completely unaffected by Ruby's wiles and just started trying to walk away from the pathetic looking girl. Ruby quickly shot past and jumped in front of her once again. She wasn't letting this issue drop.

"Neo, what is going on? Please talk to me!" Ruby pleaded with the girl to open up, hoping to find some way to connect and understand what was tumbling around her tumultuous mind.

" _Haven't you noticed? Your entire team hates me! The school hates me! No one wants me here. They're just barely tolerating me at best.. And I don't really blame them…"_ A fallen teardrop threatened to damage the otherwise pristine scroll Neo was holding by the end of the message she typed up for Ruby.

A few moments after Ruby was handed the device, a sharp crack shattered the nearby silence as Neo's cheek burned crimson. Ruby's hand similarly stung after her unconscious reaction to the miserable message Neo keyed for her. "Don't think so poorly of yourself! If you hate yourself, then change yourself! Look, my sis…you almost murdered her. She isn't going to forgive that easily. And Weiss?" Ruby started staring off over Neo's shoulder while recollecting her thoughts. "She has a very deep seeded hatred for the White Fang. Even so, her pride might run even deeper. She won't be that forgiving either…but Blake seems pretty ok with ya! She's actually been the one trying to defend you to the other two…"

A sneer grew on Neo's face when she mentioned Blake. " _I don't trust her. She's just another one of the liars. I can't do it."_ She shook her head vigorously as she wrote her response and her eyes darted about as she started to unconsciously search escape lines.

"Blake is a better person than you paint her as. If you give her a chance, you'll realize it too! Eventually the other two will come around. Eventually…" Ruby responded trailing off as her belief in her own words started to falter.

" _Why should I even bother?"_

"Because they are good people at heart, even if they aren't the best at showing it. If you are truly willing to change your stripes, then they will come around. I promise you that." Ruby reasoned as she continuously tried to stay between Neo and the woods. She doesn't want to repeat her last speedy incursion into a pine tree.

" _And who are you to make such a promise?"_ Neo replied as the fire in her words had seemingly been cooled down by Ruby's soothing arguments.

"HAH! I'm their team leader! They have to follow my orders." Ruby jubilantly fired back with a Cheshire grin stretching ear to ear and her thumb proudly jammed in her chest..

Unfortunately her words still didn't seem to truly pierce her reclusive shell as Neo continued to avoid her gaze. "To gain someone's trust, you have to decide to trust them first. It's a leap you gotta take, but you'll never get anywhere if you won't make it. If you want, just trust me for now. If I can't wrangle this team together then I'll personally help you escape next time. Ok?"

"… _ok."_


	7. Chapter 7

_**-Ozpin's Office-**_

"This weather is looking positively dreary." Ozpin lamented with a heavy sigh as he gazed out of his office window. A mournful sight was on display as a thunderstorm was starting to roll through the valley surrounding the campus. "You know, it can be said the death of joy and inspiration comes enshrouded in the depressing and melancholic outlook that this weather epitomizes." He waxed philosophical as he continued to lazily stare at the approaching assault.

"Yet, your penchant for over-dramatizing is as alive and as vivid as usual. Honestly, I don't think we see this weather nearly enough. It helps keep the ne'er-do-wells stuck inside and limits their ability wreak havoc on this school and cause me massive headaches." Glynda responded to his rather despondent viewpoint as she walked across the office to join him by his side. A normally routine scene of discussion between headmaster and headmistress was playing out in his office except for the fact that they were not the only people in the room. A third person was squirming in one of the chairs sitting just across from Ozpin's desk and she absolutely hated every second being there. She always nervous when she was called up to his office, even the times she wasn't getting punished, and she seems to be getting called up here more and more!

"That may be true, but I do remember a certain incident that happened inside the cafeteria, weather notwithstanding. Lunch food and soda went everywhere." As the nervous visitor writhed in her chair, Ozpin continued the conversation with his second-in-command.

Glynda remembered that migraine well. She managed to clean up the big things easily enough. Aside from the obliterated vending machines, she was able to tidy up the tables, chairs, and giant splotches of the, at one time, edible food, but she scoured the room in irritation trying to clean up the smaller splashes of soda and ketchup. Who the hell uses ketchup as a weapon, anyway? To make matters somehow even worse, Ozpin fed her that 'kids will be kids' line and didn't even let her dole out any form of sweet vengeance against those brats! Even thoughts of that miserable experience is enough to bring a migraine stampeding through her consciousness.

"Please, don't remind me of those…students and their horrific knack for arbitrarily destroying school property. There's not enough tea in the school to help with the headaches they cause me.'

"HEY! I'm right here! And we don't destroy things arbitrarily…it just kinda happens…near us…yea…" Ruby finally grew tired of sitting by and listening to her team being lambasted for their playful antics, but her defense of their actions fell flatter than the well shaken soda she ingrained into the cracks of the cafeteria's concrete walls.

"Just stop…You're not here to discuss that matter anyway. We asked you to come here to talk about Neo." Glynda scoffed at her pathetic deflection as she sauntered around the desk and lazily half-sat, half-leaned against the front as she finally brought the conversation to the main topic.

"Why do you want me to talk about Neo?" Ruby asked as her curiousity and wariness quickly overtook her sense of fear and nervousness. Glynda just crossed her arms and shot a barely noticeable glance back towards Ozpin as he ventured back into the conversation. At her silent prod, he sat up from his standard brooding look of 'double hands beneath his chin in deep contemplation'.

"We just wanted to know how she's been doing. How she's adjusting to life with the other students; how they're adjusting to her." He leaned forward as he explained his intentions for the little red team leader. Glynda spared a small, imperceptible glance off to the side of the room as Ozpin was roping Ruby into his plan.

"You mean like you want me to act like a spy?" A new round of fidgeting beset the young huntress-to-be as she sat there and tried to digest what it was that Ozpin was asking her to do. Glynda rose from her seat from in between the two and walked over to a table sitting against a far wall. A corked glass bottle sat on top with a ring of small glasses surrounding it. Tumblers would be the correct term for them, but to Ruby they were just small glasses. Glynda uncorked the bottle of what looked to be water as the conversation continued.

"Ruby…while you and I believe she can be pulled back from the brink, there are many people who would rather see her in chains along with her boss."

At that comment, Glynda loudly dropped a handful of ice into the glass as she prepared her drink, slightly disrupting the conversation at hand.

"Anyway, we're operating in a bit of a gray area right now and we need to keep a close eye on her. If she ever attacked or even killed a student here and then the public found out the culprit was a known terrorist we were housing?" Ozpin continued on without even a glance of acknowledgment for his disruptive subordinate.

"She would never do that!" Ruby however, had a much more intrusive response to his speech.

"I'm glad you have such faith in her, but we can't afford to not consider the worst case scenarios. If the public got wind that she was merely being housed here and there's the chance she could cause damage to the students? Let's just say I don't think even I could brush that kind of controversy under the rug. That's why we need to know how things are going with her, if she's having problems with the others or if she's getting irritated or angry or anything out of the usual with the other students. We can't afford the alternative."

Ruby raised her head to retort before returning her glare at the ground. Once, twice more as she was trying to contemplate what he was asking her to do. Report on everything Neo has done since she got here? Continue to report to him about her comings and goings? He had a very convincing and grounded argument but darn did it still feel wrong to her.

After a minute or two of contemplation, she finally relented to his request and started to recall any incidents she remembered involving Neo…

 _ **-One Week Ago-**_

After Ruby managed to talk Neo out of running away from Beacon, they ended up accidently spending the rest of the early morning sitting beneath a tree in the courtyard talking about various issues Neo was worrying about. Neither girl even noticed until the offending rays of sun that marked the start of a new day started assaulting Ruby's eyes. It was almost time for class to start by the time they returned to their dorm room to find Yang alone in the room preparing for class. Weiss and Blake most likely had already left for Professor Port's class.

"Did you forget something else - Oh my god! Ruby, where have you been? I thought you were kidnapped!" Yang belted out after she realized that it was Ruby and not one of her other two roommates coming back. Before she managed to take two steps into the room, Yang snatched her up into one of her tighter bear hugs.

"Ugh, get off me, Yang!" Ruby cried out as she struggled out from the vice grip of the blonde deathtrap. "I just went for a jog outside and lost track of time. Jeez, I'm fine, see?" As she was explaining her whereabouts, Neo rounded the corner and joined the pair in the dorm room. The change in the air was palpable as Yang's demeanor suddenly soured. She pushed her little sister away and just stared at the intruder while still addressing Ruby.

"You were out with her, weren't ya?" Yang spit out as the tiniest sneer crept onto her face before she turned to finished gathering her belongings for class. Ruby didn't respond as much as confront her sister by stomping across the room and flipping her sis around to face her. She demanded Yang stay here and deal with this horrible attitude she was showing off, but Yang was having none of that.

"You think I'm the one with the problem when I'm uncomfortable being around a psycho killer? Maybe if I didn't have to worry that we might have our throats slit in our sleep every night, I'd be a little calmer!"

"How many times has she had that chance and look, we're still here!"

"Whatever, I'm gonna be late for class." Yang uttered as she brushed Ruby's hands off her and stomped out of the room and down the hall to her class. All Ruby could do was collapse onto Blake's bed as her hard outer shell crumbled after the confrontation ended and the room's temperature started to return to normal. She looked up to see Neo standing there meekly with a look as if she could run at any moment. All Ruby could do was force the biggest grin onto her face and smile back at the nervous girl in the corner.

 _ **-Five Days Ago-**_

"Correct! Now, who can tell me the name of the faunus who led the rebellion that sparked the war over Faunus Rights? Cardin!" Dr. Oobleck continued through his everyday rapid fire questions on the current topic of his class. This time it was the lead up to the Faunus Rebellion that led to a full blown civil war between the humans and the faunus. Cardin took his feet off his desk and leaned forward as if he just started paying to the teacher. This wasn't a topic he particularly cared about. Honestly, there weren't many he did care about, anyway.

"I don't know, Fred McGruff?" Cardin haphazardly replied with a snicker. His half-lackey half-friend teammates stifled their chuckles at his painfully incorrect answer.

"That guy is such an asshole." Blake seethed with bated breath. Neo could feel the vibrations from the raging cat faunus sitting beside her as Blake's foot seemed to be transcribing Oobleck's lesson into Morse code on the floor. Neo had been considering more and more that she might be better off testing her luck sitting beside Weiss.

The entirety of Team RWBY shared Oobleck's World History class and Neo hated the seating arrangement. Ruby grabbed her seat first and was quickly joined by her sister on her right and Weiss on hers. Neo latched onto Ruby's currently vacant left, but that left Blake to pounce on Neo's. She tried making small talk and asking probing questions, but Neo always responded by recoiling back towards Ruby. Rebuffed by her enemy turned newest teammate turned distrustful ally, Blake just returned to paying attention to the day's lesson just in time to catch Cardin's wonderfully respectful response to Dr. Oobleck.

"Neo!" _Shit! What did he ask me? Everyone's looking at me now!_ Neo's focus had been drawn to the hatred emanating from the dark girl sitting beside her and had completely missed what happened with Cardin and Oobleck. She could only sit there and squirm while trying to think of anything she could do to alleviate this mess.

"Alabaster Genevieve."

Neo was startled when heard a name whispered out to her. She looked over to see Blake glancing back at her.

"His name. Alabaster Genevieve."

Neo quickly etched the name whispered to her onto a scratch sheet of paper and presented it to Oobleck as he leaned in closer towards her; awaiting an answer. He quickly read the proffered piece of parchment before launching it into the air above Neo's seat and shot back across the room at a dizzying pace.

"Splendid! Two days in the class and she's already answering questions our regular members are still failing on! You all could learn a thing or two from her dedication to her education! Moving on!" Dr. Oobleck's attention turned elsewhere after reading Neo's answer and continued on with the rest of his lesson.

Neo looked over at Blake who was still glancing down at the very relieved looking girl beside her. She grabbed her note book and slid a note over to Blake a couple seconds later.

" _Thank you._ "

 _ **-Two Days Ago-**_

Neo was sitting alone at a table beside the wall in a rather empty cafeteria. She had come in earlier than the normal lunch hour and there were only a few people trickling in for an early lunch. Blake was across the room still picking up her food; well, trying to decide between a fresh seafood salad and a small bowl of tuna noodle casserole, anyway.

While she was busy agonizing over which type of fish she wanted to devour, Neo was quickly trying to scarf down a simple lunchmeat sandwich and some chips. The cold sandwich station was the only one without a cook actively manning it, which made it a rather easy decision for her.

Despite the fact that the room might only have a handful of students currently enjoying the facility, Cardin and his team just happened to be some of those few. She felt a sharp jab in the middle of her back as she was propelled forward into the sandwich she was trying to take a bite of. Cardin quickly retracted his elbow as he stopped walking just past Neo's seat. While she was trying to recover from the sudden assault, Cardin leaned down until his lips were a scant breath away from her ear and whispered something to her. It was only a couple seconds before his team were cackling their way to their normal table and Neo was left still choking for air as the strike to her back had left her struggling to breathe.

Blake was moving towards Neo's seat with greater haste after seeing that attack, but Neo quickly grabbed the rest of her food and made a beeline for the closest door. She tossed her food, tray and all, into the closest trash can just before she pushed through the cafeteria doors. All Blake could do was stand there, paralyzed by inaction, and stare at the doors slowly swinging closed.

 _ **-Present, Ozpin's Office-**_

"Those are the only incidents I've seen." Ruby concluded after recalling a number of events involving their favorite new psychopath. Her focus bounced between Glynda and Ozpin as they seemed to be silent communicating between each other before Ozpin's glare returned to rest solely on Ruby.

"Thank you for that. Aside from our already known trouble makers, I'm sure people will be able to come around on her. It'll just take some time to see her as a normal student and not the enemy." Ozpin said reassuringly, although she wasn't completely sure who he was trying to reassure with that statement.

"You are free to go Miss Rose, and please make sure to keep these meetings between us." Glynda gave her a subtle warning as she verbally pushed her towards the door. With the meeting apparently over, she took the hint, and quickly made for the exit. She let out a huge sigh of relief as the elevator doors closed and she was physically separated from the two highest ranked members of Beacon's faculty.

 _ **-Elsewhere -**_

Neo was sitting in a classroom listening to Professor Port as he was clearly going off on a tangent; he rambling on about a Boarbatusk hunt he lead years back when he was a young strapping huntsmen. Neo was barely listening to him however, as she was internally freaking out as the only other member of Team RWBY in this class was currently absent for some godforsaken reason. Ruby broke off from her before they arrived, saying she had something she had to take care of and left Neo to attend the lesson alone.

"Hey, freak."

"Hey, I'm talking to you."

Neo could hear hushed whispers wafting through the air right behind her. _They're talking to me aren't they? They have to be, there's no other freaks around here. God, why can't they just leave me alone? I just want to be left alone!_

*poke*

*poke**poke*

"Hey, bitch! You there? I heard you didn't talk much, but I didn't know you were a fucking vegetable."

Cardin continued the relentless poking and prodding at the back of Neo's head while he continued his rant; barely able to keep it at just a whisper. Neo could only sit there and try to not react, but she eventually she noticed one particularly brutal assault coming and she instinctively ducked her head deftly out of the way of the offending finger.

"Oh ho, so you _are_ there. Man, so you've just been ignoring me this entire time then, eh? Fucking bitch." Cardin punctuated that last derogatory remark with a rather sharp stab to her neck with his fingers. At this point, all Neo could do was shiver and shake as she started to shut down mentally just like before. No one really noticed the muffled commotion going on as Neo had sat as far away as she could when she made it to the classroom. Cardin noticed her glances towards the other students near her.

"They aren't gonna notice us over here. Besides, whose gonna help out a murderer anyway? Everyone here knows you were on that train. Only reason no one else has messed with you is because they're scared of Ozpin. You'll never fit in here. No one wants you here." Cardin cackled as he finished his last verbal barb before he returned back to his seat. Thankfully, the professor recovered from his tangent and was just starting his actual lecture. Cardin was really not in the mood to receive more 'extra' lessons, so he had to cut the verbal assault short, but the damage was done, nonetheless.

 _I'll never fit in here. They're never going to leave me alone. No one would really stand up for someone as worthless as me when push comes to shove. Would I even deserve it if someone did?_

Just then, the door behind Neo cracked open a bit, and Ruby stuck her head in to see how late she was. She quickly scoped out the situation and then slid into the seat next to Neo when the professor was looking away.

"Hey! What'd I miss?" Ruby, unable to contain her seemingly limitless storage of cheer, sat down with a wide smile on her face and pep in her question. All Neo could do was stare at her lectern and shake her head to the negative.

"Hey…are you ok?" Ruby inquired with a thoughtful tilt of her head. Neo seemed even more nervous than usual and she was worried what may be causing it.

Neo quickly typed out a couple words before sliding her scroll over towards Ruby. Neo turned away from Ruby while she read the note and towards the professor who was currently plowing through his lecture on the differences in the wolf and Beowulf grimm tendencies and habits with a full head of steam.

" _I'm fine, just uncomfortable sitting alone. Don't worry."_ Ruby gazed from the message, to the back of Neo's head, then lazily swung her sight across the classroom. She hesitated before tapping on Neo's shoulder and pushing the scroll back over towards her. Neo glanced back towards her and Ruby responded with the biggest, cheesiest grin on her face.

"Well don't worry! I'm here now!" The smallest smile and a slight chuckle was Neo's only response to the unbelievably high-spirited redhead.

* * *

 _ **AN: I'm not dead, yet! Although, I think this chapter went through so many revisions, if I used a normal pen and paper, I probably would've gone broke paying for notebooks. I SHOULD have the next chapter out a good bit quicker than this one. It actually was the second half of this chapter that ended up broken into 2 parts. Either way though, I want to thank everyone again for the follows and the likes and just the interest in the story. It has definitely helped me keep my nose to the grindstone!**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**AN: Hey guys! Wanted to add a little explanation to how I'm treating aura in this story. In regards to using aura as a defense, aura basically functions as a second skin that naturally protects from various attacks, but a person can consciously control it to move the protection around to specific part of the body, weakening other areas to reinforce an area that's about to be struck. I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!**_

* * *

 _ **~Ozpin's Office~**_

"Another team was taken out this week. I just got the news from one of our watchers in the area."

"That's the third team we've lost this month…who was it? What happened?"

"Team Mountain. The last mission they accepted was to find out the cause a series of disappearances in Lichton. They spent a week in the town exploring and investigating, but the first night they traveled outside the town was the last time any of the villagers saw them alive. They were found in a cave miles away. Bodies of beowolves and a couple of the missing villagers were also found there."

"They couldn't have been done in merely by beowolves, were they?"

"The watcher found evidence of dust ingrained within some of their wounds. Unless they turned on each other for some reason, there must have been a third group in this fight."

"And we still haven't gotten anywhere with our guest yet…"

"We've lost too many good huntsman already; is it time to consider stopping teams from going out on requests until-"

"No! No…If we pull back our huntsman now, we're leaving the citizens with real requests twisting in the wind. If they lose their faith in us, they could easily call for us to disband; to step down from our role as guardians. In the worst case scenario, a shady strongman organization could slip into that void."

"Can we send multiple teams together on requests?"

"We don't have the numbers to do that. Especially with the teams we've lost already…Glynda, put her in the ring."

"In the practical training course? You want to put her in combat with other students? That doesn't sound like a horribly dangerous idea to you?"

"It could help spark her memory if we put her in situations that she was accustomed to. Have her fight Cardin."

"Are you insane? Someone could end up dead!"

"That's why I have faith that you won't let it come to that."

"You know, even you have a limit to how far you can abuse your authority."

"Well, let's hope I won't reach that limit until my authority is no longer needed."

 _ **~A Couple Days Later~**_

"Come out of there Neo! It's time for class!" Ruby pleaded as she pounded on the team's bathroom door. She let out a loud, frustrated sigh as she dropped her head in frustration until it rested against the door.

"We're going to be late!" Ruby uttered as she turned her back to the door and leaned heavily against it. She could feel the frustration building inside herself as she slid down the door until she ended up with her ass on the floor and her head leaning lackadaisically against the door. Looking out at the rest of the room, she witnessed the rest of her team in the finishing stages of preparing for class. Yang was sitting on her bed adjusting her gauntlets, Blake was standing near the window with her boots nearly tied up, and Weiss had already finished her ensemble and was at her desk, organizing her notebooks again.

"I can take the door off the hinges if you really want her out of there, sis." Yang offhandedly remarked with a devious smirk as she locked her gauntlet in place.

"No, Yang. We aren't destroying the room again just because we're in a hurry." Despite the bleakness of her chances as making it to class on time, Ruby shook her head at her sister's suggestion.

"No, you're in a hurry. We're heading to class." With books in hand, Weiss corrected her as she had finished with her desk and was already heading for the door. "Come on, girls. We've got a long day of us."

"Good luck with that, sis." Yang remarked as she exited the room. Ruby was left staring at a now lifeless dorm with a nervous roommate sitting locked in their bathroom while they were becoming perpetually later and later for class; Glynda Goodwitch's class. The day was off to a wonderful start.

"Neo, it'll be fine. There's no way they're going to have you fight in your first time here. That'd be insane. You'll just have to show up." As she was finishing her last attempting at reasoning, Ruby immediately felt the shock from a sudden free fall as her support gave way. She crashed to the ground as Neo finally opened the door that she was still resting against.

"Are you finally ok to go? Then let's go! We're gonna be late!" After an affirmative head nod from the recluse, Ruby grabbed her hand and drug her towards the training arena. The doors swung open as an exhausted Ruby Rose managed to arrive to her class that was well underway already with Neo close behind her. She tried to sneak them down into some seats before they were noticed and try to play this whole 'completely late' thing off.

"Ahh, Ruby Rose."

Damn. Looks like the playing it off plan just got scrapped. Plan B time; begging for leniency.

"I'm so glad to see you two have finally decided to grace us with your presence. Please sit down; we will be having our next fight starting momentarily." Glynda chastised the girls as they finally arrived for their practical combat class, yet she didn't include threats of punishment, thankfully. Pyrrha and Weiss were currently leaving the arena, with Weiss looking a bit worse for wear; beat to hell, to put it bluntly. A quick glance at the scoreboard showed Pyrrha still had almost ¾ of her aura left when she pushed Weiss into the red.

With the passing of the immediate teacher danger, Ruby and Neo quickly scanned the room, located Yang and Blake sitting in the stands, and grabbed a seat next to the pair. Not any sooner than they found their seats, Glynda spoke up again to announce the next fight.

"Cardin, please come down to the arena floor. Your opponent will be Neo." Glynda directed as her decision on the next fight brought an eerily quiet hush on the class. No one actually expected them to have the criminal fight against any of the students here. There's no way they'd actively encourage her to swing a weapon at the same people she was trying to murder a month or two ago…right?

Cardin didn't much care about those kind of thoughts at all. He ignored the stairs and leapt over the wall separating the spectators from the training arena in the middle of the room; the bounce in his step made him look almost giddy to be participating in class for once.

"Neo, please come down to the training arena floor." Glynda reiterated as the last thoughts of disbelief were driven out from the room.

"Miss Goodwitch! She was just given a new weapon a couple days ago. I don't think she's prepared to step into the ring yet." It wasn't Neo that stood up first but Ruby, in an attempt to prevent Neo from being thrown into a battle on her first day in the class.

"Thankfully Miss Rose that is why we call this training. We don't want to send students into a real battle with no preparation. Neo, if you please."Glynda soundly retorted Ruby's last ditch effort to save her friend. Neo, unsurprisingly, was barely able to keep from trembling as she finally stood and made her way towards the stairs. Ruby slumped down dejectedly into her seat as Neo approached each step two feet at a time with her hand firmly on the railing on her way to the arena floor. She looked different with a rather plain looking sword plastered to her hip. Her umbrella had been obliterated and they needed to find her a replacement weapon. Since her hidden umbrella sword was, in essence, a rather basic weapon, a regular sheathed sword seemed like a decent enough replacement for her.

A hellacious, thunderous sound reverberated off the walls as Cardin's mace slammed into the stone floor; he bore holes straight into Neo's core as he stared her down all the while.

"Are you coming over here, or am I gonna have to drag you out here?" Cardin uttered as his face creased and displayed a sly, devious grin; he was barely hiding the fact that he was oh so looking forward to this massacre…fight. This fight.

 _How is the hell did I get myself into this?_

Neo finally emerged out of the tunnel that connects the arena floor to the stairs and stood face to face with her personal tormentor. She barely managed a couple more steps into the arena before a chunk of reinforced steel screamed towards her face.

Her preternatural nimbleness barely managed to keep her from catching a spike in the jaw. She felt the wind emanating off that strike as she dodged off to her right into a roll before unsteadily bouncing back up to her feet. She barely had a moment to gather herself as Cardin pulled his mace back out from the floor and swung again upwards towards his nervous adversary.

Neo managed to raise her sword up in time to parry the incoming assault, but she still ended up on her ass a couple feet away as just the force of the swing tore into her equilibrium. Cardin started to circle his opponent as he took in the sight of her scrambling back to her feet.

"Hahaha, oh man. This is adorable. I thought this was going to be a fight, not an execution." Cardin uttered in-between raucous, deep-throated laughs.

 _Oh god, he's going to kill me! He's really going to kill me! What am I gonna do?! Shit!_

As Neo's composure was collapsing, her concentration could not manage to stay on point, and she failed to dodge his next assault. His mace caught her left arm and drove it into the side of her abdomen as he followed through on the swing. Her aura was far from crumbling but the force of the hit rattled her insides as she was flung across the room and skidded to a halt just below the students' seating.

"Please stop this! She isn't even fighting back!" Ruby screamed out in protest before getting yanked back into her seat. Yang had ripped her back from the concrete divider by her cape and scolded her for that outburst.

Meanwhile, Cardin slowly stalked towards his prey as she rolled over onto her hands and knees; coughing up blood onto the floor. A smug swagger emanated from him with every step he took.

 _I don't want to do this…I never wanted to do this…_

A sickly crunch echoed in the arena as his steel boot connected squarely with Neo's stomach and she involuntarily retched from the brutal impact. She collapsed into a heap and rolled onto her back as he retracted his boot from her gut.

"Miss Goodwitch, please this is too cruel to watch!" This time it was Blake's turn to try to get this one sided affair shut down. She couldn't restrain her grievances any longer and rose to her feet to protest.

"The fight will conclude when one of the student's aura approaches the red line. The next outburst will be dealt with harshly." Glynda coldly shut down the peanut gallery's concern as she continued to focus on the fight. Blake could do nothing but slink back down into her seat next to Yang, who was still busy trying to keep Ruby restrained from causing another outburst.

 _Not like this…not again…_

"I do hope you don't waste this much time during a fight in the field, Mr. Winchester."

Cardin could only sneer at Glynda's chastisement and hastened his steps to finish off the bloody trash laying on the ground. He swung his mace with a full arm rotation to ensure the maximum velocity and momentum as it smashed Neo's head against the floor. A spectator walking in could easily confuse the resulting sight for a bomb detonating in the center of the arena, complete with a full plume of dust and dirt afterwards, obscuring the view of the onlookers. Many of the students reflexively recoiled back as the shockwave from that strike and the chill of death permeated through their bodies. A different kind of shock followed however, as a look towards the scoreboard only revealed a change in aura level for Cardin. Somehow his aura level had dropped while Neo's stayed steady.

As the dust quickly settled, the momentary confusion was quickly supplanted by surprise as Neo was revealed to be already standing behind Cardin with her sword drawn and bloody. Not only had she dodged the brutal coup-de-gras attempt, but she had managed to pierce through Cardin's defense with a counterattack.

"Oh ho…looks like this kitty cat has some claws after all." Cardin boasted as he tried to regain control of the battle and his emotions by speaking down to Neo once again, but this time his attempt fell woefully short. During his insulting speech, Neo turned back to face him and the rest of his words immediately died in his throat. He found himself face-to-face staring into a pair of eyes he'd swear belonged to a corpse if they weren't boring two holes through his chest at the moment. Cardin froze up as he started to truly feel the fear and despair seeping into his being from that stare just as Neo briefly experienced a few minutes prior.

She took a step, two steps, a third towards Cardin; continuously staring through him all the while. He had no idea who was in the ring with him right now, but this was not the timid girl he had just beaten half to death to his supreme enjoyment. He reflexively slid a foot back and balanced his weight back on his heels, but just that was enough. The smallest sneer crept onto Neo's face before she disappeared from his sight. He felt a presence just to his left and locked eyes with the demon just below his arm as he felt a burning sensation in his side.

Neo jumped back, retrieving her sword and the precious life source that coated it, from Cardin as she prepared for a follow up strike. The continuous shocks from the events of the last few seconds finally cracked his resolve completely and Cardin fell to his knees as he clutched at the blood-soaked wound just below his ribcage. Neo once again disappeared for just a moment before reappearing directly in front of her broken prey with her sword piercing the air directly in front of his throat.

"That's enough!"

Her blade stopped a hair's breath away from its goal as Cardin's aura was still catching up to reinforce his neck; it would've been woefully too slow to deflect the blow on its own. The wraps that appeared around the blade retracted and dissipated into the air as Glynda managed to secure the weapon before it made a fatal connection.

Neo turned towards the irritant and locked eyes with the headmistress for a scant second, but it was enough. Glynda could see the death and despair hiding behind those dead eyes before a blink revealed the normally colorful and emotional visage that she's been used to seeing on their 'transfer' student.

Neo stood stock still for a second while processing what just happened and what she just did, before breaking down to tears and rushing towards the exit. Glynda reluctantly had to dismiss the rest of the class early so she could tend to the delinquent currently bleeding out in her class. Ruby bolted after Neo and quickly managed to catch up to her in the hallways heading towards the dorms. She tried to ask her what had happened or how she was able to do that, but when Ruby put her hand on Neo's shoulder, she shrugged her hand off and waded through the crowd and out of sight. Ruby stumbled back for just a second but it was enough for her to lose sight of her tumultuous friend in the crowd. She thought to try to chase after her until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"What happened? Where is she?" Blake had managed to catch up to Ruby and was joined by the rest of the team a few moments later. She had no idea what happened, how anything that she just watched actually transpire, what was going on in Neo's head. The only thing she knew was that she saw Neo's face just as she shrugged Ruby's hand off her shoulder. The emotions were very transparent on her friend's face; She was in pain and very afraid.

"I just- she- I don't know…" Ruby tried to explain what just happened but all she could do was ramble aimlessly while standing there shell-shocked from everything she just watched. After a few more moments of indecisions and a calming breath, she once again took off after their troubled teammate.

 _ **~Team RWBY's Dorm~**_

 _Oh god what was that? That wasn't me! What happened? All I can remember is the blood…I was going to…kill him? NO WAY! I couldn't! I just wanted to be left alone..._

Neo jumped as her self-reflection was disrupted by the banging on the dorm room door.

"Neo! Please let me in! I just want to talk!" Ruby seemed to be the intruder into Neo's thoughts as she once again was pleading with the girl to open the door. As she pounded on the door, she felt the wooden hindrance dissipate like a vapor, leaving her to ungracefully tumble into the room. She floundered on the ground, surprised at another door suddenly giving way on her today, before catching sight of one Glynda Goodwitch stomping into their room with a purpose.

"Neo, please follow me. The headmaster wishes to see you." A flick of her wand and Neo could feel herself forcefully stood up from where she had previously collapsed on the ground next to Blake's bed.

Neo wanted to reject this intrusion. She wanted to be left alone. Her head was a jumbled mess with thoughts and memories and raw emotions drifting through her consciousness. She wanted to just be alone and try to process everything but Glynda tore down that thinking.

"Now." Glynda's terse command brooked no argument.

In the span of a few seconds, Glynda had Neo marching out of the room, still sniveling from the tears that refused to stop flowing, and Ruby was left lying on the ground watching the display. She scrambled to her feet in an attempt to chase after them, but as soon as she stood up inside the dorm, a flick of Glynda's wand reset the door back in place. Barely avoiding the third door related incident of the day, Ruby could only stand there and stare at the newly formed door shut in her face.


	9. Chapter 9

**_AN: Man, I really need to work on getting these updates out quicker. Though, seeing people still randomly following and favoriting(sp?) the story even after a month or two without an update is surprisingly more motivational that I thought it would be. Anyway, good news is that while I was working on this chapter, I ended up writing enough to fill almost 3 chapters worth of content, so I should have another chapter out soon, and the next one out relatively soon after that. Relatively. Thank you guys again for the support._**

* * *

"I told you she was dangerous!"

"Yes, yes, we heard you the first time, Yang."

"This is what I was talking about, Blake! You guys all saw her snap! If it wasn't for Glynda intervening, Cardin wouldn't be breathing right now, and you seriously still want to consider sleeping in the same room with her? Not a chance, not a fucking chance in-"

"We saw the same thing, Yang! OK? We're all freaked about what just happened. We're going to have to talk about things. Just calm down for two seconds…"

 _ **~A Few Moments Earlier~**_

The rest of team RWBY were left to once again chase after their fearless leader after witnessing her blast through the doors connected to their dormitory wing. They quickly traversed the dormitory on the familiar back towards their dorm room, but just before they arrived, they found themselves face-to-face with a teary-eyed Neo. White and watery locked in place with red and enflamed before a nudge to her back revealed she was being paraded through the hall by an extremely aggravated Glynda Goodwitch baring even whiter than usual knuckles as she wielded her riding crop.

Yang stepped up towards Neo when she broke the stare and ducked her head down, but a quick sneer from the headmistress tempered any potential interaction as the pair disappeared around the same corner the team just passed.

"Come on, let's go find Ruby." Blake spoke up to cut through the rapidly developing tension and refocused the group with only a few words before things could spin out of control. A defiant look from Yang aside, the girls quickly resumed their journey to their dorm room only to find a lethargic looking Ruby Rose sitting just on the other side of the door when they barged in.

 _ **~Present Time~**_

"What's there to talk about? She's not staying here any longer!" Yang continued to burn as she refused to calm down after her newest rant about the psychopath that's been sleeping on an air mattress in the corner.

When they first arrived, they tried to shake Ruby from her stupor but she seemed set in her faux catatonic state. It didn't take long after a couple attempts to rouse her before the argument started back up again. Yang was still standing near the door as she restarted her rant; she didn't make it too far into the room before jumping back into her tirade. As she vented, her heel was noticeably bouncing against the carpet and was picking up speed and intensity the longer she spouted off.

It was hard to disagree with her after witnessing the murderous spectacle on display in the arena just a few minutes ago, though. The images of Neo driving her sword towards Cardin's neck without an ounce of hesitation or remorse seemed to vindicate the hatred Yang's been venting towards her ever since her arrival.

Ruby was still settled nearby the door staring off in a daze through all this. It was eerie to see their normally jubilant and annoyingly hyper team leader so silent and still, but with her sister garnering most of the current attention with her reinvigorated ire, she was largely ignored. Blake was still on her feet next to her bed; she was the only one still trying to talk Yang down. Weiss was sitting at her desk and stewing over the shocking revelations they had just witnessed while staring at the closest textbook. Honestly, she was still listening to the argument and she was in a rather agreeable mood with the firebrand on this topic, which brought its own set of uncomfortable, irritating emotions for the heiress.

"Are you seriously afraid of that crying little girl that just walked past us? She couldn't even look you in the eye." Blake attempted to reason with the raging blonde and vainly coupled it with an indirect compliment.

"Yea, until she flips that switch and tries to bury that sword to the hilt in my eye. You saw her eyes in the arena. Those were the eyes of a murderer; a torturer. Those are the same eyes I saw just before she tried to kill me on that train."

The room seemed to chill a couple degrees as her mention of that incident brought back some memories Yang could only hope to forget about. Blake's eyes widened as she recalled the horrors of the conversation she had with Yang when they first brought Neo in, but her gaze quickly hardened as she refused to back down on this issue.

"Those eyes we just saw in the hallway are her eyes, too. If she has it in her to be able to show those eyes, then I think she can be saved; rehabilitated. There's more to her than what you saw on the train!"

"You think she'll still be like that when she remembers how she used to be? You actually think you can rehabilitate that monster? That-"

Yang was quick to retort against that fanciful fairy tale of an idea but she was silenced just as sharply as the elbow strike she just felt reverberate through her side.

"If there's someone you can save, then you keep trying to save them until you do. A huntress will never turn her back on someone in need. Never give up. Never stop trying." After brutally silencing her sister who had collapsed after that sneak attack, Ruby finally spoke up, although in a rather practiced manner and not to anyone in particular. Blake had been full ears on the argument anyway, but Weiss perked up to listen as well when the youngest started her mini-spiel. It almost sounded like she was echoing a quote, but neither of them could recognize it. They didn't have to wait long to get a good idea where it came from though, because after Ruby finished that line, she quickly turned her focus to her older sis.

"You probably know these words better than I do. You got to hear her say them herself. I only heard them when you guys tucked me in at night. Every time I asked about her, he'd tell me all these fancy stories about her being an amazing huntress and how she saved all these people and killed all these grimm, but that quote was what always stuck with me. Never give up. Never stop trying."

"But Ruby-"

"Is this how you'll honor her memory? By turning your back on her and disgracing her words?"

Yang was rather lethargic in her effort to stand back up from her sister's attack, but she snapped to attention as that vile accusation was hurled at her. Her rage reignited as her eyes burned fiery red.

"How DARE you say that to me!" She was back on her feet in a heartbeat with her fist cocked but it only took her a second to disengage and recompose herself. "That…thing that was just walked out of here cannot be saved. I would NEVER turn my back on an innocent." She finished her words with a slow, measured tone. The sisters were standing with not a foot between them, staring each other down in the middle of the room. Blake somehow managed to find herself a mere spectator in what was her own argument, but she wouldn't dare jump into this family battle.

The room was frozen in place after Yang finished her defense, and no one dared to move. Ruby stood her ground and refused to yield even an inch to her sister. Her eyes, while not holding back rage, had a deceptive strength and tenacity swirling behind them. After what felt like ages, Yang finally shattered the frozen tension by breaking the stare down with Ruby and headed for the door. She exited the room, but paused for a moment to send a withering look at her sister.

"Glynda was already walking her out of here and I'd bet they've already handed her over to General Ironwood." Yang spit out before slamming the door shut behind her. It would be another minute or so before they finally stopped hearing the rampaging blonde walking away from the room; at one point they were somewhat certain they heard the sound of a door splintering in the hall.

"If you need me, I'll be in the library studying, in silence." As soon as the room settled, Weiss was quick to depart the scene of the carnage. She probably had planned on studying anyway, but it was rather obvious she wasn't going to be able to study with this kind of drama surrounding her. Now that the argument that she would refuse to admit she was interested in was over, she needed some peace and quiet, and Blake was quick to follow behind her. Despite Yang being successfully silenced on the topic, the fight became extremely personal and uncomfortable for outsiders. Blake needed some time alone to unwind and process the raw emotions that permeated throughout the team after that.

It was only after Blake escaped that Ruby finally collapsed in a heap into a nearby chair. She had never yelled at Yang like that before and she certainly never stood up to her like that. She also never insulted her sister like that before. She sat there replaying the argument in her head over and over again, and she slowly came to the uncomfortable realization that she didn't feel wrong for taking the stand that she did. That train of thought lead to the uncomfortable realization that this chasm between them was probably only going to get deeper.

Despite Yang's boast, Neo returned to the room a couple hours later to only find a pensive Ruby Rose still sitting at her desk with book cracked open and an aura that screamed that she was ruminating over something. Despite that, she snapped out of the stupor when she saw Neo return and rose from her seat. After noticing the poor girl returned without her sword and with fresh stains drying on her cheeks, Ruby reached out to try to comfort her. Neo recoiled back from her touch and slinked back down onto her mattress. Thanks only to the deathly still air in the room, you could barely manage to hear the stifled crying start up from her corner. Ruby stared futilely at her hand as she slowly retracted it and returned to her seat.

In a fleeting bout of rage, she slammed her books shut and launched them onto her bed. After that outburst, she took a second look at her bed, but the clock on her stand defiantly reminded her that it was much too early for sleep. Honestly they should be getting ready to head to dinner right now; if they were actually functioning like a team, anyway. The other girls are probably already there. That's a confrontation she wasn't ready to start up again. You could hear a sudden intake of breath as Ruby rose from her seat again, but the sniffles resumed when she opened the door to leave. A walk might do her some good and help her unwind. Besides, the campus grounds are a particularly beautiful sight at night.

 _ **~In the Forever Fall~**_

The leaves were soft like felt against her skin as she absentmindedly ran her hands along the branches of the nearby trees. Ruby walked deeper into the forest as she searched for an escape from her room, her team, and the world to be honest, so she could be alone with her thoughts. She had left campus and immediately headed for the Forever Fall forest; she found the location very calming and had quickly fallen in love with the little patch of nature after spending some time there for a couple of class assignments. She continued to wander farther and farther into the jungle-like atmosphere as she thought more on what happened and how her teammates and sis reacted to that…incident. The more she thought about their reactions, the more she felt those horrific images of Neo trying to kill Cardin tearing through her brain, interrupting any actual train of thought. All she could do during those times was fight to shake off those feelings and try to regain focus from the fear that reached up to grip her heart. _Was Yang right? Can she really not be saved?_ _We've never argued like that before…_

Despite the mental war being waged in her head, her mind sobered in an instant as she heard a branch snap somewhere close by. She dropped low into a fighting stance while she ran her hand over her precious. Her finger was nervously tapping the activation switch on Crescent Rose as she swung her head around while desperately trying to find what had managed to sneak up so close to her. The intruder did not make the same mistake twice and she could only crane her neck every which way as she futilely tried to find another clue to locate this irritatingly silent presence. Her nerves were starting to fray as the time went on without any idea where she may be approached from, or attacked from.

The clue only came when the attack started, as she noticed a slight shift in the air flow around her head. Her reflexes reacted instinctually before her mind even gave the command and Crescent Rose screamed to attention as it bloomed into its deadliest form; the whir of machinery shattered the silence and stillness that was the state of the forest just moments earlier. Before it could even finish the transformation, she started the swing of her gruesome life taker up in a wide arc towards the air above her and her instincts bore fruit as she felt heavy resistance against her blade. In an instant, she felt the head of her scythe shoot downwards as this black shadow managed to use their falling momentum to knock Crescent Rose off course and harmlessly angled towards the earth and away from her target.

Instead of trying to readjust her swing back towards her attacker, she sped up her swing and put more force behind the strike while readjusting the arc so the blade didn't get buried in the earth during the spin. Like a toy top spinning on a table, she twisted her feet around while barely touching the earth until she managed to bring her slice all the way through the rotation and back in a lower angle in an attempt to catch the shadow farther down on its descent. Crescent Rose kicked up dirt as the head lightly skimmed the forest floor until Ruby steadied her stance and brought the weapon back up to try to meet its target once again. They hadn't touched down on the ground yet, so there's no way they could change their course enough to dodge her new swing. She internally cheered as she felt her new trajectory bring her blade up against the soft flesh of her attacker, but just as it started to sink in, the resistance disappeared and her blade continued harmlessly upwards in a gross overshoot.

Crescent Rose wrenched itself free from her grip as the massive amount of force generated by her spin as it also launched her into a violently reckless pirouette before she slammed against a nearby tree and collapsed to the ground. There's no way she can recover in time now, much less retrieve Crescent Rose and actually put up a reasonable defense. She was so certain that last attack was going to connect! Ruby expected to feel a surge of pain from the assailant's inevitable counter and just tried to put all her focus into buffing the defensive aura surrounding her.

The searing pain quickly arrived, but in the form of a strong flick to her forehead. She reflexively winced as the pain she envisioned was less bloody and more irritatingly annoying. She opened her eyes in time to see her supremely bothersome opponent finally step into her line of sight.

"BLAKE!? What the heck was that for? What are you even doing here?!" Ruby screeched as she finally realized that one of her close friends is actually the perpetrator that was just threatening to end her life. She quickly scrambled to her feet as Blake let out a soft chuckle at her adorable team leader.

"I saw you walking around in a daze; thought I'd see how out of it you were. What the hell was that second attack, though? You have to be part faunus to be able to contort your body like that." Blake said with a slightly teasing tone in her voice. She reached a hand out to help Ruby back up to her feet, but as she rose, she still had a rather petulant look plastered on her face.

"Oh, you're fine, you big baby. What are you doing out here anyway?" Ruby clicked her tongue in mock annoyance when it became clear Blake was completely unfazed by her wiles. After a second, a more serious face appeared on Ruby's visage before she responded to Blake's question.

"Same as you probably are. I needed to escape for a bit. Be alone. To think."

"You're worried about Neo? About siding with Neo?" Blake cocked her hip to her side, her hand resting just above it, as she poked and prodded for Ruby's deeper feelings. She generally kept a very superficial happy-go-lucky front up to shy away questions, but Blake wasn't going to let her go with a simple 'Let's go win this, team!' kind of attitude. She needed to know where she stood; especially since a war with her sister over this seemed inevitable.

"Yes! I just, don't know. I want to save her! I'm just, not sure anymore. What happens if we can't? What happens to her if we can't? I mean I look at her now and I just think 'This is someone who I know has good in their heart. I've seen it,' and then I think of the monster I saw in the ring earlier and I just can't help but start crying." Ruby leaned back against the tree and stared off towards the ground as she tried to explain her thoughts and feelings and she felt those familiar fears flooding back into her consciousness. Blake felt a new wave of concern flowed through as she rushed to support Ruby.

"Were you that scared of her?" She managed to keep Ruby standing up with a steady hand on her shoulder. Ruby was still looking rather flushed and unsteady on her feet; her recollection causing her more distress than Blake expected.

"No! It's just, I can't help but think about what kind of hell she had to go through in her life to go from the innocent little girl to what we saw in that ring. I just can't imagine it, or I don't want to imagine it. I don't know..." Ruby was able to shrug off Blake's support after a minute or so and regain her somewhat steady footing. Her appearance seemed more certain and grounded but it belied her true feelings that looked as if they could escape at any moment and cause her to crumble once again. _I knew she held a generic, almost childish "look for the good in everyone" mindset but to think Neo's plight would affect her this much after only a couple of weeks?_

"Yea, those kinds of people tend to have plenty of skeletons in their closet. Not everyone can grow up with a happy, well-adjusted family." Blake tried to comfort her sullen leader, but she was rather rudely interrupted. An inopportune roar emanating from Ruby's stomach disrupted the flow of their conversation and demanded their full attention.

"I'm sorry! I totally skipped out on dinner and just came out here without thinking. I guess my stomach caught up to me. Do ya think the cafeteria is still open?" Ruby sheepishly apologized for the obtrusive interruption, although she was slightly relieved to be off the previous topic, if only for a bit. Even though it's something they'll have to deal with, it wasn't a particularly pleasant one to think or talk about.

Blake could only chuckle at the outburst and her attempt at an apology

"I'm sure it is. Let's go, I know how you get when you're hungry."


	10. Chapter 10

**_AN: Hey everyone! News about the story: After chapter 11, I plan on taking a slight break from this story. I'm planning on solidifying plans for the second half of this stories with friends I've been in discussions with and once I do, I should have a solid plan on the rest of the chapters. So bad news, there may be no new chapters after the next one for a good bit, but good news, there should be a relatively completed story ready to go once chapter 12 hits! Oh and the end of this story has been planned out since before I started and it isn't changing. I just need to work on the path there. Once again, thank you all for reading and enjoying(hopefully) this story._**

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Ruby wasn't too keen on following Blake along an unfamiliar path back towards the school. She felt lost as she tried to keep pace with her friend on this mystery path until it emptied out not much more than a stone's throw from the campus grounds. With the sun well set and the lack of lampposts near the forest's tree line, they made their way towards the only glowing light coming from the nearby dorm.

"Blake…" As they approached the school buildings once again, Ruby broke the silence between the pair. "You mentioned understanding the kinds of people with not-so-happy families and skeletons earlier. How exactly well do-" She immediately regretted asking that question as she felt the pressure and almost feral bloodlust assail her senses as Blake swung her focus around squarely onto Ruby. Her eyes flashed a dangerous gaze towards Ruby, but it dissipated almost immediately afterwards. After a slight shake of her head, Blake returned to her normal aloof and uncaring visage.

"I'm sorry. I don't particularly enjoy talking about my past. There never seemed to be many bright spots when I think back on my past. If you really want to know more about it, then we can talk about it over dinner then." Looking at her scroll, the time danced across the screen in a marquee fashion, _9:13._ "Most people should've already eaten by now, so we should have the place to ourselves while we eat."

The girls made their way down to the cafeteria and found the room sparsely populated and rife with tables to choose from. The cooks had long since left and only a pair of cleaners were left in the kitchen area, so they were left to grab some refrigerated meals designed for 24 hour access. After a quick zap in the microwave, the pair made their way over to a table near the corner of the lunchroom with nary a soul nearby.

Ruby tore into the first sandwich she had bought, while Blake barely managed a bite or two while mostly just playing with her salad. Her teammate's trepidation was palpable but with food in front of her, Ruby barely even noticed.

"My dad…he was very supportive of the White Fang from its earliest days. They were a peaceful organization back then. The White Fang was my second family growing up and it was great. I attended meetings and rallies. I didn't think much on the topics at hand, but everyone there seemed happy and cheerful. Upbeat, you could say. Our crowds were growing bigger, and humans were paying more attention to us. It seemed to be going well until the attacks started. Our rallies were being assaulted by humans angry at us for stepping out of place." Blake paused as she seemed to be remembering some of the more terrible memories from those times but still continued her explanation. Once she had started talking, Ruby quickly swallowed the remains of her sandwich and turned her ears towards her teammate.

"Well, I didn't really know why they were they were attacking us; I was just scared of humans that were attacking us and started hating them in kind, but dad spent time trying to explain their feelings to me. He told me that many humans are used to the status quo and are scared of seeing that change, and many of them aren't that well off even though they're human. Many of them are just trying to survive their daily lives. Sadly, some of those found peace with their struggle because at least they weren't faunus and they don't want to lose that. Some of them are just filled with hate, but honestly many of them are just scared of change or of losing what little standing in society they have, even if that standing is only in their head. It really didn't make sense to me at the time.

Anyway, not many other White Fang members still shared his peaceful views. A new power was rising up by riding on the hatred of humans and our apparent need to retaliate against them. It was a swift and brutal regime change which gave us the radicalized White Fang we have now. During that changeover though, my dad refused to give up on the group. He thought it was still a great chance to help the average faunus' life.

He never stopped speaking out against the violence taking over his cherished organization until one fateful rally. The humans attacked that rally as they were doing with more and more frequency at that time but this attack was different though; it seemed much more insidious. Some of the more extreme White Fang members mixed in with the humans in brutalizing the protestors. They were trying to sensationalize the attacks on the White Fang and legitimizing their views while also targeting some of their bigger opponents opposing their cries for war against the humans…including my dad. Of course I didn't truly understand the politics and the strategies being implemented and what they meant. All I really understood at the time was the humans attacked our rally and in the confusion of the melee, I watched as my father was trampled to death."

A half-chewed piece of her sandwich dropped onto the table as Ruby's jaw froze mid chew when she heard that disturbing revelation from her teammate. Despite her laser like focus on Blake's story, she had managed to already unwrap and start devouring her second sandwich.

"Oh my god, Blake. That's horrible! I'm so sorry to hear that." Ruby dropped her sandwich and quickly reached across the table to grasp her hand to impart her solidarity with her plight.

"Thank you for your concern. It means a great deal to me, truly. I've…made my peace with that part of my past. At the time though, I was a swirl of emotions; none of them good, and most were fueled by anger. I blamed the humans that attacked our rally and got swallowed up by the rhetoric of the radicals taking over the White Fang. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Neo went through her own set of traumatic events, maybe even worse, and she's never got a chance to make peace with it. She was swallowed up by her hatred and bitterness and if you can't make peace with it, then that anger and rage eventually turns ice cold." Blake tried to impart onto her diminutive leader the difficulty that will come with trying to save Neo, if they can even save her, but Ruby wasn't letting that bring her down.

"There's no way I could quit without trying, Blake. I don't care how difficult it might be, I've seen what she could be, and I'm gonna do whatever I can to help her regain that." Ruby didn't even hesitate to double down on her pledge to help Neo, come hell or high water. Blake's eyes lit up at the resolve her teammate was showing right now; she wouldn't be Ruby if she didn't say at least this much. A fleeting thought crossed her mind wondering what could've happened if she had a friend like her when she was drowning in the despair of the White Fang. She dispelled the notion just as quickly with a shake of her head; asking what if and what could've been only leads to more pain and regret over a choice she never actually had. She really needed to change topics.

"I'm glad to hear that. It helps put some of my nerves to ease, anyway." Blake sat back in her chair and let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding in before continuing. "Now, since you decided to pry into my past so brazenly, I'd like to know what that quote you spoke in the room was about. I've seen Yang, mid-fight, fall into a nest of deathstalkers and just start throwing punches. In there was the first time I've ever seen her freeze up completely. I even saw beads of cold sweat on her forehead."

Ruby's mood quickly shifted from steadfast to sullen at the mention of the meltdown she just experienced with her sister in the dorm room. Blake painted her into a corner before she could even think to argue or deflect; how could she dig into her friend's past and then clam up about something personal to her?

"I barely have any memories of my mother. She disappeared when I was little more than a toddler. Growing up, Yang and my dad would always tell me bedtime stories about these magnificent warriors. Huntresses that would strike down any grimm. Huntsmen that always saved the innocent children. Dad also liked to end his stories by recalling that quote. He told me that was my mother's mantra as a huntress just like the ones in the stories. He said it was mother's way of still being her to tell me stories before bed." It was Ruby's turn to squirm in her seat as more particularly painful yet oh so familiar memories rushed to the front of her mind.

"It wasn't until I was a little older before I learned the truth behind that phrase I heard every night as a kid. Yang and I were in a particularly heated argument and she let it slip that our mom only said that for her and not me. Obviously that devastated me to hear as a kid, but I eventually was able to ask Dad about it, once I stopped crying over how mean Yang was." A small chuckle escaped Ruby's lips but was quickly overtaken by the seriousness of the conversation once again. "Once he realized I wasn't letting this issue go, he told me that he never really remembered Mom saying that; not as a saying or a mantra, anyway. Before Mom's last mission, Yang was feeling particularly bad about her leaving. She wouldn't let go of her at all. She didn't calm down until Mom hugged her and told her that line. Apparently, Yang had found that soothing and Mom was able to leave for her mission to go save the world again. That was the last thing she ever said to Yang.

For a good year, Yang was inconsolable. The only time she'd talk she'd just repeat that saying. Apparently I had heard her saying it one point and started trying to repeat it. Apparently my face would always light up when I heard Yang say it and Dad noticed. He asked Yang to say it again to me, I mangle out a couple words of it again with a giggle, and Dad said that was the first time he saw light in Yang's eyes since Mom died. Yang finally started opening back up and started looking after me more. Dad and Yang even started telling it to me when they tucked me in at night. It wasn't a mantra, or a way of life, or anything like that. It was a nice saying she thought of to try and calm her unruly child so she could go to work, but it was the last thing she ever said to any of us. It became a bond that we all shared that connected us to her. I think Yang takes those words to heart even more than I do." Ruby went deathly silent after finishing her story, and Blake couldn't even muster a response. The emotion overflowing from that memory was strangling any words in her throat.

They sat there in silence for the longest minute before Blake finally spoke up. "It sounds like your family came together after losing your mother. I'm glad to hear some happiness could come out of a terrible situation."

"Yea, we really became inseparable as a family after that. Mom would've probably come haunt us if we let our bonds deteriorate because of her." Ruby let out another small chuckle before Blake reached over to grasp her hand. She had noticed the clock ticking on the wall and they were well past the time they usually went to bed. They had to get back to the dorm room ASAP if they wanted to actually get a reasonable amount of sleep. Blake quickly drew Ruby's attention to the clock and they set off towards their dorm.

Meanwhile, after Yang had returned to see Neo back in the room, she refused to sleep in the same room with her and wouldn't come off that idea. She even went as far as carrying her box spring and mattress over to JNPR's room and shacking up with them. Their room was currently missing a door for some reason, so Yang was able to just walk in with her stuff and drop it in the corner. They quickly learned force wasn't going to move the blonde as Jaune's favorite hoodie was the sacrifice paid for that lesson.

Jaune only managed to get her to return back to RWBY's dorm room after asking her who was watching out for Ruby now that she wasn't in the room with her. As angry as she was with her sister, she couldn't ignore her safety like that and quickly retreated back to her dorm with mattress in tow, to the huge relief of team JNPR.

 _ **~A Couple Days Later~**_

The girls woke up in silence again as they had been since the incident. The tension from that explosive argument was still wreaking havoc in the Team RWBY dorm room. None of them were talking to one another outside of the absolute bare minimum regarding classes and training. The girls each prepared for their daily classes in silence and went their ways without as much as a 'Good morning!' to each other. Weiss left early to attend her advanced dust studies, Blake and Yang left together next as they shared their early morning classes, and Neo was left to keep tagging along with Ruby to her intro classes. Ruby did her level best to try to interact with Neo and give her a warm, accepting feel after that disaster in their room, but most of her attempts fell on deaf ears. Although, one crack about Professor Port being Yang's newest love interest on the down-low did get a stifled snort out of the distraught teenager, so that was progress…kinda.

A low growl emanating from the back of the class went undetected amidst the current discussion transpiring in the class. Cardin apparently enjoyed an extremely quick recovery time from Neo's brutal assault and had already returned to class. The sight of his attacker sitting peacefully in class only stoked the fires of his rage.

 _Why are you still trying to be friendly to me?_

The class was thankfully almost over when a scroll slid across the RWBY girls' desk until it collided with the resting Ruby's arm. She was startled by the unexpected feeling against her arm before she realized what happened and snatched up the scroll. A frown crested on her face before responding in hushed tones.

"Because I don't give up on my friends. Ever."

 _Why would you want to be friends with a monster?_

After another couple passes of Neo's scroll, Ruby could feel her heart cracking as she read those words. _How could she be thinking of herself like that?_ She instinctively reached over to grasp Neo's hand to comfort her but she was wholly rebuked. Neo snapped her hand back to her chest before darting out of her seat towards the door; tears streaking down her face in an all too familiar scene.

Ruby wanted to immediately chase after her, but fear that chasing after Neo might push her even farther away stilled Ruby's movement. She wrestled with her emotions before ultimately deciding to sit back down and give Neo the space she wants.

 _ **~Elsewhere~**_

"I can't believe Ozpin cleared her to return to classes…"

"Yang…Ozpin met with her and talked to her multiple times since the fight. If he thinks she's fine to be in classes, then who are we to question him?"

After Blake and Yang left their Weapon Theory and Design class, a new argument popped up while they made their way towards their next classroom. Neo had been allowed to return to classes only a few days after nearly executing a student in front of their training class and Yang seemed to have an issue with that.

"She's a murderer and we're just supposed to go to class with her like there's no problem?"

"She didn't kill Cardin, remember?"

"You seriously think she didn't kill anyone before she came here?"

"We've been over this Yang. That's not who she is now."

The hallway was quickly filling up with more hustle and bustle as students continued to leave their early classes as well. The girls were forced to squeeze through the huddled mass of teenagers but that didn't keep Yang from continuing her complaints.

"Didn't seem like it took much for her to get back to her roots."

"It definitely seems easier to revert back when people treat her like the criminal she was no matter what she does now."

"Are you saying it's my fault for what happened!?"

"Well, you sure aren't helping her to adjust."

The swell of traffic in the hallways was starting to recede as the late morning classes were preparing to start, but the pair noticed a small group of students still crowded around a nearby bathroom that didn't seem to want to dissipate. Thoughts of their discussion were quickly pushed aside as they made their way to see what the commotion is.

Yang had no qualms about shoving and shouldering her way through the mass of her peers to finally see what was causing all the clamor. Blake quickly followed behind Yang's wake to the front and peered over her shoulder to try to catch a glimpse.

"Nothing to see here. Let's get to class, Blake." Yang made her offhanded comment a couple seconds after reaching the door of the bathroom before turning to leave. She left an opening for Blake to fill as her view, to her horror, became much clearer.

Cardin, Lark, and the rest of his team along with a few more of his cronies were crowded around a disheveled mess of a girl curled into a fetal position on the floor. Cardin had his back to the door with his mace resting lazily over his shoulder; blood dripping off the menacing weapon.

"Hit her again!" The approving cries rang out in the small bathroom as the thirst for blood had not yet been satisfied for the monsters masquerading as huntsmen in training. Sky delivered a vicious kick to her lower back which broke her posture as she arched her back as the pain from the impact wracked her body.

Her face had finally been revealed to the newer onlookers, but Blake had long figured out who the target of their torment was. Neo's anguished face was revealed to be a bloody, tearful mess as her back arched. She quickly tried to curl back up into a ball and hoped they would just leave her alone.

Memories flashed through Blake's mind as she saw the horrifying display of most and was disgusted to see everyone standing around and cheering it on. Most of the students outside the bathroom around her weren't cheering along with them, but neither were they voicing much concern for the crimson-soaked girl collapsed on the floor.

Unable to contain her rage, Gambol Shroud surged through the air nearly slicing through Cardin's right ear. As it started to reach the end of its tether, a tug on the strap sent a dust cartridge screaming into Sky's shoulder and the recoil rocketed the weapon back over Cardin's left shoulder. Before Cardin even realized what was happening, he could feel the cord growing taut around his neck as he was violently ripped backwards towards the entrance. He turned his head just enough to see a pissed off Blake Belladonna pulling him directly towards her, but the expected collision felt like nothing more than a wisp of air as he continued into the unexpected collision with the door frame just behind her.

Lark was a bit quicker to recognize the whirlwind that just started ripping through his teammates but that only served to let him watch as Blake appeared directly in front of him. He could feel the daggers from her gaze piercing through his chest before Gambol Shroud gashed his arm. He managed to stop his aura from instinctively defending against the invading force penetrating his forearm, but it still gave Blake ample time to plunge the sword deep into his shoulder just below his collarbone as the remaining aura around it quickly crumbled. Just as he started to notice the effects of the attack sending his body into a state of shock, a palm appeared just over his forehead. Her momentum carried both of the students into and through the stall divider behind Lark which left him splayed across the crumbled metal wall as it leaned against the toilet it was providing security for. Blake ripped Gambol Shroud free by shoving against his head while pulling the blade out of his shoulder. The momentum generated by her brutal unsheathing drove him further into the remains of the stall, while Blake tried to quickly return to her feet.

Unfortunately as Blake was busy extracting herself from the crumpled pile of Lark lying across the toilet of the stall he was driven through, Dove lunged towards her with his sword unerringly driving directly for her throat. She finally noticed the surprise attack from the last Cardinal member barreling towards her, but she recognized the threat a second too late. She instinctively created another clone to take the hit, but she barely had enough time to try to return to her feet, much less dodge the mortal strike screaming towards her. That unfortunate second seemed to last forever as she expected to feel the cold steel tear through her neck, but the sharp bite of his blade never came.

An explosion rocked and reverberated in the poor bathroom as it suffered another traumatic strike from these calamitous students. The next thing Blake saw was a golden gauntlet outstretched directly in front of her. A turn of her head revealed Dove out cold and indented into the far wall. Blake, still half frozen from her near brush with death, struggled to return to her feet before Yang reached a hand out to Blake to help her back up. The remaining students in the bathroom stumbled over each other as they tried to push themselves through the crowd and out of the bathroom, lest they end up as another wall ornament.

"I didn't come back for her." Yang uttered as she hiked a thumb back towards Neo, who was still lying on the floor. "I just couldn't live with walking away and letting my partner get hurt." Her words were dripping with contempt as she spoke about their roommate on the ground. Blake scoffed as she accepted the help up, but mostly ignored her quip and returned to the floor as she knelt beside Neo. The poor girl was still immobile on the floor, aside from her constant shivering.

Blake cradled the mess of a girl in her arms as she stood back up. "Yang, we have to get her to the infirmary, now."


	11. Chapter 11

_**AN: I'm not dead yet! I didn't mean to take so long off, but real world issues, a busier schedule and nearly a month in the hospital kept pushing this to the back burner. Either way, I've at least managed to lay out the concepts for the rest of the chapters for this story as well as finish reworking this chapter. I'm still planning on finishing this story and hopefully get chapters out quicker than once every seven months. I want to thank everyone for continuing to support and follow this story despite the hiatus.**_

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"I don't see why I have to be here, too."

"Because you are a kind, caring teammate and I needed help carrying her to the infirmary."

"Oh come on, she wasn't that heavy; you can't be that weak."

"Can't you please at least pretend to give a damn about your teammates?"

"Can you please stop pretending that she's actually our teammate and not just a burden Ozpin dumped on us?"

Blake bristled at Yang's complete lack of empathy for the girl they had to drag out of that bathroom but before she could retort any further, a nurse approached the pair.

"Miss Belladonna, can I please speak with you?" The nurse, Helen according to her name tag, called out to the girls as they continued their rather animated talk. After an overly exaggerated sigh, Blake swallowed her frustration and turned her attention to the nurse calling out. As Blake stood up to speak with her, Yang just lazily draped her arm and leg over the chair that Blake had just vacated. She stared off at nothing in particular as she had as much interest in the current situation as a dog has with the fleas on its back.

"We've managed to stabilize your teammate for the time being. None of her injures were life threatening, but she did suffer a broken leg along with a pair of broken ribs and a fracture in her lower left arm that will all need to be mended before she can be cleared to leave. We're hoping to get her back on her feet in a week or two at the soonest with reoccurring dust transfusions. Visiting hours don't end until nine so you can go visit with her now if you wish; she's currently resting in room 105."

"I'm so glad to hear that. Thank you for everything you've done for her." Blake bowed her head as she thanked the nurse before heading towards the hallway and the room in question. She had just crossed the lobby before she noticed her partner shuffling towards the infirmary's front doors.

"Are you not even coming to see how she is?"

The only response she got from her bunkmate was the creaking noise from the door hinges as it was slowing to a stop. Blake could only shake her head at the sight before turning back and heading towards hallway. She barely made it to the doors before a flurry of rose petals cascaded around her. She regained her senses after a couple of moments of dizzying bewilderment to find her flustered leader with a hand against the doorframe as she was regaining her breath. The bright red, aromatic tornado barely managed to avoid crashing into Blake but that only resulted in an uncomfortably close gap between the girls. Unfortunately for Blake, Ruby thought absolutely nothing of it as she poked and prodded for news on their newest teammate and her newest friend.

"What happened? Is she ok? Where is she? Is she hurt?" Ruby quickly peppered Blake with questions after recovering her breath. Flying through the entryway and skidding to a stop before crashing into her teammate had left her only a bit fatigued.

Blake wanted to chastise her for her completely reckless actions but Blake could only swallow her words given the earnest look of distress and concern contained in Ruby's eyes as she waited for answers. Instead, all she could manage was allowing a soft chuckle to escape her lips before responding to her.

"You've probably already heard rumors in the halls, but she was attacked in the bathroom by Team Cardinal along with some other lowlifes. I haven't seen her yet, but I was just on my way to her room."

"What are we waiting for then? Let's go!"

Before Blake could even explain anymore, Ruby had already bolted down the hall to go visit their wounded teammate. All she could do was shake her head at her leader's unabashed enthusiasm and follow behind her down the hall. A few moments later as she's rounding the first turn, she runs into a slightly confused Ruby heading back towards her.

"Um, what room is she in?"

"…Just follow me, Ruby."

The pair of girls wandered through the hallways of the clinic as Blake led the way until they arrived in front of Neo's room. Blake quickly grabbed Ruby's collar as she tried to rush into the room. After quietly scolding her rambunctious leader, Blake cracked open the door and peered inside to find Neo lightly sleeping in her bed. She closed the door before turning her attention back towards the antsy girl behind her gently massaging her neck.

"She sleeping right now so you really need to keep your cool. Don't just rush in there and wake her up, ok?"

"I'll be fine Blake. I won't wake her up." Ruby half-pleaded with her teammate before Blake opened the door back up. With the door opened fully up, the sight became much clearer to the pair.

Neo was lying in a bed up against the near wall with wires and an IV running up to the machines beside her. The bandages wrapped around her arms and head made for a rather solemn sight. Only the slow, constant beep from her heart monitor tracking her pulse filled the air in the room. The scene laid out before her hit Blake like a bucket of ice water. She stood frozen for a minute, just absorbing the sight, before breaking the stupor and sitting in the seat next to the bed on the far side of the room. She placed a hand just on the edge of the bed, not daring to disturb her as she rested. Ruby followed behind her and grabbed a seat beside the table on the other side of the room before pulling it up next to the left side of her bed.

After actually seeing the results from the vicious bathroom attack, reality hit Ruby hard as her mind became a flurry of thoughts and emotions. Sorrow for the horrible experience that Neo just had to endure for no good reason; anger at Cardin for perpetrating this brutal attack; regret at her thought to give her space. _If only I chased after her. I could've stopped this._

"Do you think I could get some time to talk to her alone, Ruby?" Blake's voice cut through Ruby's mental self-flagellation and drew her back into the hospital room she physically in.

"As team leader, I want to be here when she wakes up. I was the one she was with just before this assault happened! How can I possibly leave her side again after that?" Ruby practically jumped out of her seat as she responded to Blake's ludicrous request. There's not a chance she could leave Neo's side again at a time like this. While she did attempt to keep her shocked response rather muted, Neo still ended up stirring and rolling about after her commotion. Ruby's hands immediately shot up to her mouth and she quickly looked at Blake as if she just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar again.

She didn't see anger. She didn't see annoyance. She couldn't even put into words how to describe the look on Blake's face when their eyes met. She thought Blake would push back and tell Ruby to leave or argue or something, but all Blake did was utter 'Please' in a barely audible, almost pleading whisper. Her face sported an uneasy smile that looked like it could shatter at the slightest touch. Ruby was taken aback at her friend's simple request and a myriad of thoughts and emotions played out on her face before she responded.

"Well, it looks like she might be waking up soon, and I bet she's going to be kinda hungry. I think I'll go talk to the nurses about getting some food brought in for her." Ruby headed towards the door after deciding it would be better to not pry into this issue and give them some space. Before she left, she turned to ask another question.

"Do you want me to grab you some food, Blake?"

For the first time since she'd been in the infirmary, she saw a natural smile emerge as Blake chuckled at her question.

"That would be wonderful, Ruby." And as she turned to leave…

"Thank you." A twinge of red dotted Ruby's cheeks as she continued out the door; thankful that she had her back to her.

Blake turned her attention back to the girl lying in the bed who was currently looking back up at her. She reared back in surprise as Neo continued to stretch rather gingerly as she tried to fully wake up. Blake quickly regained her senses as she noticed Neo weakly reaching towards her phone resting on the stand beside her. Blake hurriedly grabbed the phone and handed to Neo before she had to exert herself any further.

 _What happened?_

Another wave of surprise washed over Blake as that was the exact question she wanted to ask Neo, but that quickly passed. She probably couldn't remember most of that encounter or anything afterwards.

"Yang and I saw the commotion at the bathroom and took a look at what was happening. After we saw those monsters assaulting you, we had to jump in. Thankfully, we got you here quickly and I just found out that there's no real permanent damage. I'm sure the doctor can talk to you about that better than I can. I'm just so glad they didn't kill you." Blake barely managed to finish that statement without breaking down to tears once again.

 _Why did you bother?_

After typing in a response, Neo tossed the phone into Blake's lap and rolled away from the girl. Blake couldn't believe the question she had typed in. How little did she think of herself?

"What are you talking about? How could I leave my friend to those jackals like that?" Blake tried giving her the phone back but she would just petulantly roll to the other side each time. After breaking down and physically forcing the phone into Neo's hands, she finally got a response.

 _Why bother saving a monster?_

Blake's heart dropped when she read that message. Does she really hate herself that much?

"You're not a monster. I've seen your kindness. I've seen the emotions that dwell within your heart."

Neo snatched the phone from Blake's hand and quickly punched in a response before tossing it back at the hesitant girl hovering beside her bed.

 _What kindness? What emotions have you seen? Please explain because all I've felt is fear or hatred. Go ask Cardin how kind I was._

"Cardin is the one who tried to just kill you! I don't want to even think about what his opinions on kindness and humanity are!"

 _I tried to kill him first! How could you blame him for that! He was just exterminating a monster that you keep trying to save. Why are you even still bothering?_

"BECAUSE I USED TO BE THAT MONSTER!"

A pregnant pause permeated throughout the room after that furious exchange between the pair. Neo could only look up at Blake in shock as she could only turn away from the bed after dropping that bombshell. For the first time in the argument, the mute girl was left speechless.

"Back when I was in the White Fang, I was looked at and treated like just a monster. I never truly believed that, but those self-deprecating thoughts were always latched onto the back of my mind like a leech just draining away any feelings of self-worth. The worst experience was one of the early White Fang rallies before violence became one of our calling cards."

Blake took a breath as she returned to Neo's side and sat back down in her chair. She started to recall the events once again from the day her father was beaten, but now she was recalling the events following that assault; memories she had long tried to bury.

 ** _~Many Years Ago~_**

It was pure and utter chaos. Faunus were running every direction. Humans were lobbing bricks and other projectiles while chasing down anything with a tail or extra ears. All you could hear were a chorus of yells and screams and all you could smell was the blood splattered across the field they were protesting on not ten minutes prior.

Blake was standing stock still in the middle of that bloody field; scared, confused, overwhelmed. Every fiber of her being was screaming to go find Papa. He can protect her. Papa always protected her. Unfortunately, she had to keep fighting her instincts and remind herself that Papa was lying on the ground being stomped on in a clearing just ahead of her.

She was finally shook from her stupor as a terrified deer faunus shouldered past Blake as she was running for her life. The frightened faunus barely made it a step past her before Blake saw her body go slack and her eyes lose focus. The dust round that tore through her chest left a ghastly looking wound in the center of her back as the poor girl fell to the ground face first right beside Blake. There were slight twitches coming from the body of her White Fang sister as she vainly attempted to reach out towards Blake for help before the arm dropped back down to the earth and the faunus's body finally fell silent and still; so very, very still.

The situation was finally starting to become real to Blake. The numbness of the shock was wearing off and she couldn't help but start retching. Her legs finally started responding to her mental pleads as she managed to start running towards the closest bathroom. She thankfully made it without issue, quickly dove into the nearest stall, and started violently hugging the toilet.

"Sounds like one of them's in here!" A voice echoed from the entrance as a new wave of fear washed over Blake while a pair of humans made their way into the bathroom to investigate. A grizzled looking man sporting wild looking salt and peppered hair and a rather unkempt five o'clock shadow was in the lead as he walked in. His crazy hair and rippling muscles hidden beneath a non-descript dark t-shirt stood at odds with the softness of his baby blue eyes as they scanned the bathroom. A smaller, scrawnier man dressed in similar t-shirt and jeans getup appeared in the bathroom just behind the first. He also sported a beard, but kept it much more maintained than his companion's and it was accompanied by a full mane of blonde hair perched on top of his head. They both stood a good couple feet taller than Blake and, despite the well-groomed man's diminutive stature, each looked and moved as if they knew their way around in a fight.

As they scanned over the room, Blake tried to gather herself and prepare for a fight. She didn't have much time to work with as the lead man quickly pushed open the first stall door. He was startled when he found himself confronted by a tiny, angry faunus girl swinging her fists wildly at him. Despite the surprise assault, he laughed off the petite blows against his chest before he grabbed her by the shoulder and tossed her into the middle of the bathroom.

"Looks like this one has still got some fight left in her!" He threw his head back as a wave of laughter washed over him after watching the faunus's futile efforts.

"Not really surprising. Even mongrels lash out when ya corner 'em." The smaller man snidely commented as she landed, splayed out in an unsightly display near his feet.

Their back-and-forth gave her precious few seconds for breath before the shorter man kicked Blake back against the far wall of the bathroom. Panic was truly setting in for her now. She didn't know how to actually fight. She didn't have the experience and she didn't have any concept of tactics. All she could do was scramble to defend herself as the older-looking one of the pair reappeared from the stall and stepped towards her. Once he managed to get close enough, she reeled back and put all her strength into a punch to his side. He didn't even bother dodging as her fist connected solidly just below his ribs. He barely even noticed.

"Hah, look at that! She's still trying to fight back. That's some spunk right there." The apparent alpha of the pair laughed off her attack before backhanding her with enough force to send her tumbling into the stall next to them. She barreled through the stall door headfirst and slammed into the brick wall behind it before her body fell limp beside the toilet.

"Damn, Rob did ya see how her head smashed against that wall? I think you killed her."

"Ehh, they're pretty durable. I doubt she'd die from just that. Look at that, she's still squirming around. You can still get some shots in, Chuck."

Blake felt like she was in a complete daze trying to pull herself back up to her feet. Her mind felt so scrambled from that impact against the wall, she couldn't even form a coherent string of thoughts. She could barely even see straight as blood poured out of a massive gash across her forehead. A concussion was obvious and the orbital bone surrounding her left eye was shattered. She stumbled as she managed to regain her footing but a boot slammed into her cheek and drove her back into the wall. Her head slammed into the brick and mortar once again with a sickening crunch as her body collapsed in a heap between the toilet and the floor.

"Looks like she's gone now."

"Whatever. Just drag her out of that stall. I still have some tension to work off." Rob replied as a lurid smile creeped onto his face.

Chuck grabbed her by the leg and tossed her motionless body into the middle of the bathroom. Blood streaked across the floor along the path before Rob stopped her with his foot and pinned her against floor.

Blake managed to regain enough consciousness to roll her head over and see the human grinning ear to ear.

 _Please…just kill me..._

Before her consciousness fluttered back out of her grasp, she saw her torturer's face disappear as a blade took its place.

The next time she awoke, she found herself lying in a bed. Pain coursed through her body as it felt like there was a jackhammer pulverizing the inside of her skull, but that horrible feeling meant she was alive. She never expected to still be alive. A nearby door opened as someone walked into the bedroom. It looked like a young faunus sporting a small pair of horns on his head. _Is he a ram or maybe a bull faunus? Wait, did he save me from those monsters?_ As she pondered her thoughts, the young man set a glass of water on the nightstand beside the bed and moved to replace the damp cloth resting on her head. The cloth fell over her face as she jerked back instinctively as he got close. She immediately realized her mistake as the pain in her head redoubled from her reaction.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down. Your body's still a complete mess. I know we heal quickly but with all the damage those disgusting animals did to you, you need time to recover. Just calm down and don't make any sudden movements. Ok?" The young faunus slightly panicked as he tried to calm Blake down before she hurt herself even more.

After the newest wave of pain started tapering off, Blake managed a simple thumbs up after thinking twice about nodding her head. The faunus let out a rather large sigh before allowing a smile to emerge on his face.

"Good, I'm glad to hear that. I found you in that bathroom with those miserable excuses for humans and I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner. They would've killed you if I didn't hear them in there. I've been tending to your wounds, but it'll take a long while for you to heal. The broken bones will take some time and your eye will be rather sensitive to touch for a while. I'm cooking some food right now, so I'll bring that in when it's done. Now if you don't mind, can I replace that dirty cloth now?" The young faunus finished his quick explanation of his view on the incident and what happened after Blake blacked out. She spent a minute to process the words she heard before tentatively nodding in the affirmative. She made sure to move her head at a much slower pace this time. He laid the new cloth on her forehead and grabbed the old one off her lap before walking back towards the door. Just before he left, he popped his head back into the room.

"Oh yea, my name's Adam, by the way. I'm sorry we had to meet like this."

Blake leaned back against the chair while wiping away the tears that escaped down her cheeks. No matter how long time stretches out from that point, recalling those memories still cut as deep as a fresh wound. She jumped slightly as she felt a hand grasp her hand that was resting on her leg. She looked down at the hand clasping hers and followed the arm back to the girl lying in the bed until Blake's eyes met with hers. A fresh set of tears welled up in her eyes as she grasped Neo's hand with both of hers. Time froze around them as they sat there in silence.


End file.
